Chapter 12 - Rice straw for biofuel production

Abstract

Protection of the environment is one of the major concerns and there is urgent need to accomplish the same by minimizing the harmful activities such as less dependence on fossil fuels and tailpipe emissions. A nonedible fraction of the biodegradable wastes (agricultural or forestry residues) is the value-added biological products viz. biofuels, which have the potential to replace fossil fuels at a very low cost. This review aims to elaborate the characteristics and field management of rice straw along with its recent application in the production of biofuels, since biofuels assist in minimizing the greenhouse gas emissions, renders energy security all over the globe, and boosts the concept of sustainable development. Recent research reports and documentation on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and SWOT analysis for biofuels production from rice straw have been extensively discussed and summarized to support the production of biofuel from such biological products, at a much larger scale. Also, strategies such as pretreatment processes and anaerobic codigestion to delignify rice straw and improve the biofuel yield have been demonstrated. Taken together, the current discussion has been subjected as an outlook of future perspectives by the researchers for making most of the rice straw into more valuable products to sort out numerous environmental and health hazards issues.