Bioenergy, renewable raw materials, green chemistry

Kati Réczey, Associate Professor, Department of Applied Biotechnology and Food Science

The use of renewable biomass instead of fossil-based raw materials for the production of fuels and chemicals has a favourable impact on the greenhouse effect and therefore highly contributes to the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, in which Europe agreed to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by 7.5% by the years 2008-2012. To meet this requirement, the EU undertook to increase the use of renewables as a share of the total primary energy supply to 12% and as share of total electricity to 22% by 2010. Due to its major and expanding share in the consumption of fossil energy and corresponding emission of greenhouse gases, transport sector is in the focus of regulation.

The goal of the lecture is to show the utilization of renewable agricultural biomass for biofuel and green chemicals production. Agricultural wastes are suitable raw materials for ethanol production; being cereal straw and corn stover the most widely studied substrates. This lecture is going to be focused on the usability of biomass in Hungary, in EU and all around the World.