Biodiesel and Petrodiesel Fuels

Abstract

Crude oils have been primary sources of energy and fuels, such as petrodiesel. However, significant public concerns about the sustainability, price fluctuations, and adverse environmental impact of crude oils have emerged since the 1970s. Thus, biooils and biooil-based biodiesel fuels have emerged as an alternative to crude oils and crude-oil-based petrodiesel fuels, respectively, in recent decades. Nowadays, although petrodiesel fuels are still used extensively, biodiesel fuels are being used increasingly in the transportation and power sectors. Therefore, there has been great public interest in the development of environment and human-friendly and sustainable petrodiesel and biodiesel fuels. However, it is necessary to reduce the total cost of biodiesel production by reducing the feedstock cost through the improvement of biomass and lipid productivity. It is also necessary to mitigate the adverse impact of petrodiesel fuels on the environment and human health. Although there have been over 1,500 reviews and book chapters in this field, there has been no review of the research as a representative sample of whole-population studies done in the field of both petrodiesel and biodiesel fuels. This handbook provides such a sample. This chapter introduces the key issues and findings from this representative sample of the research on both petrodiesel and biodiesel fuels, before discussing these key findings.