With fossil-fuel supplies set to dwindle, the race is on to find ways of making fuels from renewable sources of biomass. Two experts discuss the broad strategies — biochemical and thermochemical — that have emerged as practical approaches.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
The vital role of citrate buffer in acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) fermentation using corn stover and high-efficient product recovery by vapor stripping–vapor permeation (VSVP) process
Biotechnology for Biofuels Open Access 19 July 2016
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Hannon, M., Gimpel, J., Tran, M., Rasala, B. & Mayfield, S. Biofuels 1, 763–784 (2010).
Davis, R., Aden, A. & Pienkos, P. T. Appl. Energy http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.04.018 (2011).
Craggs, R. J., Heubeck, S., Lundquist, T. J. & Benemann, J. R. Wat. Sci. Technol. 63, 660–665 (2011).
Somerville, C., Youngs, H., Taylor, C., Davis, S. C. & Long, S. P. Science 329, 790–792 (2010).
Klass, D. L. Biomass for Renewable Energy, Fuels, and Chemicals (Academic, 1998).
Olah, G. A., Goeppert, A. & Prakash, G. K. S. J. Org. Chem. 74, 487–498 (2009).
Petrus, L. & Noordermeer, M. A. Green Chem. 8, 861–867 (2006).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
Stephen Mayfield: I am a founder and have an equity position in the algal biofuels company Sapphire Energy.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mayfield, S., Wong, P. Fuel for debate. Nature 476, 402–403 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/476402a
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/476402a
This article is cited by
-
Reaction mechanism and kinetic modeling for the hydrodeoxygenation of triglycerides over alumina supported nickel catalyst
Reaction Kinetics, Mechanisms and Catalysis (2017)
-
The vital role of citrate buffer in acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) fermentation using corn stover and high-efficient product recovery by vapor stripping–vapor permeation (VSVP) process
Biotechnology for Biofuels (2016)
-
Development of genetic transformation methodologies for an industrially-promising microalga: Scenedesmus almeriensis
Biotechnology Letters (2014)