Nanocatalysts to improve the production of microbial fuel applications

Fossil fuel which is the current source for energy supply is responsible for environmental pollution. Recently, renewable source comes as a substitute for this because of the depletion of fossil fuel resources and thus its inability to meet the future energy demand. Renewable energy now used is the wind, solar, biomasses, hydrogen and geothermal source. Among them, biomass is more ideal because of its efficiency in converting to liquid biofuel directly. Main conversion routes of biomass to biofuels include pyrolysis, gasification, liquefaction, hydrolysis, anaerobic transesterification and digestion. In all the methods, development of high-quality product with the optimized process is needed, which requires the use of modern science like nanotechnology. Over the last few decades, uses of active nanocatalyst for biofuel productions have been rapidly increasing. Nanocatalyst with size less than 5 nm shows a good catalytic property.

Additionally, porous catalysts developed with controlled size can be attributed to its good property like higher crystallinity, surface areas and shape-selective characters. Recent research mainly focuses on developing effective nanocatalyst for improved conversions, for getting milder operation condition, and mostly to reduce the biofuel production costs. This chapter gives an overview of different biofuel producing methods, advancements of use of nanocatalyst for biofuel production and its merits and drawbacks in various fields.