Bio energy from trees, investigatory project ideas

Carefully managed, trees offer an opportunity for sustainable production, and – unlike other bioenergy crops – non seasonally dependent harvesting and storage. Lignocellulosic feed stocks from fast-growing short-rotation tree species  show the most promise in liquid fuel production.

The production of ethanol fuel from woody biomass is accomplished by the process of saccharification, which involves the physical breaking of biomass material, pretreatment, and separation to liquid and solid components.

Here are some investigatory project ideas;


1. To improve saccharification,  most often high-pressure steam with the addition of lactic or sulfuric acid or sulphur dioxide are used. lignocellulose pretreatment technologies are still being developed and optimized at the fuel production phase, chemical treatments to improve the yield of biomass feedstocks before harvest is an alternative approach that has to be investigated

2. Although the fermentation phase has been well optimized, significant improvement is possible when considering the pretreatment phase of the process. This is another area of research in using bio energy from trees.