From Plants to Bioenergy in Agriculture
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Farming Sustainability".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 April 2022) | Viewed by 718
Special Issue Editor
Interests: plant breeding; bioenergy; quality traits; molecular plant breeding
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Genetic improvements of bioenergy crops targeting sugar, starch, and lipids for first-generation (1G) biofuel and lignocellulosic material for second-generation (2G) biofuel are recognized as an important contribution to replace fossil fuels with bioenergy. Plant storage organs accumulate sugar and starch that can easily be fermented into bioethanol or lipids that can be used directly as biodiesel. For example, castor bean oil has been used since the 1850s, long before the engine invention by Rudolf Diesel. The fuel–food–feed dilemma of first-generation biofuels can be overcome by developing multiuse crops, such as the harvested grains used for food and feed and the lignocellusic straw for 2G biofuels. Since the 1990s, efficient conversion technologies of the recalcitrant lignocellulose from straw or wood have been developed. Mutational breeding has already provided plants with modified lignin, and new breeding methods targeting the cell wall composition to improve the efficiency of bioconversion into fermentable sugars are on the way. In agriculture, anything from plants to bioenergy should be approached by multidisciplinary disciplines. In addition to breeding, it is important to consider the agronomy of bioenergy crops such as carbon–nitrogen partitioning. Further, life cycle analysis (LCA) of the whole production system must be done because it is not possible to only look at the substitution of fossils with biofuels, and the impact of increased use of bioenergy crops in agriculture may have on CO2 emission must also be considered. Of interest in this Special Issue are typical 1G energy crops such as cereal grains and tubers (starch); sugarcane, sweet sorghum, and sugar beet (sugars); soybean, sunflower, canola, palm oil, and castor bean (lipids); and typical 2G energy crops such as annual crops (wheat and rice straw) and perennial crops (Miscanthus, willow, ryegrass). However, algae for third-generation biofuel will not be considered in this SI.
Dr. Soren K. Rasmussen
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- Bioenergy crops
- Lignocellulose
- Polysaccharides
- Crop residues
- Conversion technologies
- Lifecycle analysis
- Multipurpose crops
- LCA life cycle analysis
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