Biofuel From Cellulosic Mass with Incentive for Feed Industry Employing Thermophilic Microbes

Drastically depleting fossil fuels’ supplies and the associated environmental concern dictate for immediate, renewable and environmental friendly alternatives. Cellulosic biomass has a great potential for bioethanol production. Many problems of the way have been solved by isolating and employing thermophilic, cellulolytic and ethanologenic microorganisms. Many workers have established simultaneous saccharification and ethanol fermentation from agro-industrial wastes rich in cellulosic material and some soluble sugars. The latter substances provide quick carbon and energy sources to the bacteria and yeasts inoculants. In Pakistan sugarcane bagasse is a very appealing potential agro-industrial waste in this regard. Owing to the great sun shine in majority of the country area throughout the year, solar energy has been dreamt for disinfecting the fermentation facility as well as providing steam for pretreatment of the substrate. Another source of clean fuel is H2. We have also been able to isolate and cultivate purplenon sulfur bacteria for the production of H2 employing certain agro-industrial waste including the one just referred as major media ingredients. Biohydrogen can be obtained economically, by employing bacteria capable of fixing sun energy and utilizing agroindustrial wastes including cellulosic material heterotrophically. A very appealing notion about the potential of microorganisms isolated from industrially contaminated aquatic and soil habitats form developing countries is their pollutants’ resistance. This ability renders such microorganisms capable of biofuel generation from industrial effluents containing biomass as well as different chemical pollutants. It is very right time to conserve such pollutants’ resistant microbial diversity before the developing countries progress for in situ treatments plants for their industries and the polluted areas recover back to their uncontaminated nature, alongwith losing the pollutants selective pressures mediated and thus evolved microbial communities. This journey is expected to be completed earlier than the time frame the developed countries had passed through. As the developing countries are benefitting from the experiences of the developed nations and thus are striving to escalate the process of progress. This chapter outlines the possibilities of ethanol and hydrogen fermentations for the application of agro/food industrial wastes. The related issues have been dealt in depth and the chapter comprises two major sections i.e.bioethanol and biohydrogen.