An overview of biofuels from energy crops: Current status and future prospects

Energy crops constitute significant potential for meeting the future energy need worldwide. In addition, agricultural lands offer an alternative to the agriculture which is referred to as energy farming. The studies on energy crops in biofuel production show that they are quite an economical and environmentally beneficial way of sustainable energy production. Today most of the developed countries use staples such as corn, sugar beet, soybean, rapeseed, and wheat in order to obtain energy. Moreover, bioethanol is mostly produced from sugarcane and corn and biodiesel from oilseed plants. Therefore, these produced raw materials compete with food and feed production. Consequently, the use of those energy crops which are used as food products for biofuel production is an important issue which must be considered in terms of the current food safety. Some energy crops, such as miscanthus, switchgrass and sweet sorghum, that are called C4 crops, can grow with high biomass yield even in infertile land. Thus, these crops are used in energy farming - a new type of agriculture. Furthermore, C4-type crops possess the features of resistance to aridity, high photosynthetic yield and a high rate of CO2 capture when compared with C3 crops. In conclusion, C4 crops tend to produce more biomass than C3 crops. Therefore, these crops are investigated, focused on, and elaborated on in this paper. This study aims to present a comprehensive review on the production of biofuels from lignocellulosic agricultural products and promising energy crops. Thus, the energy crops to be used as raw materials for biofuels today and in the future are investigated. In addition, it is intended to highlight the energy crops used as staples by discussing them in detail for biofuel production. The energy crops which are promising in biofuel production, particularly non-staple miscanthus and sorghum, are presented in detail as they are non-food crops and have a high yield. Furthermore, the energy crops used as raw materials for bioenergy today and their potential are compared both worldwide and in Turkey. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.