BIOFUELS: USE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY TO MEET ENERGY CHALLENGES

Abstract

Biofuels offer exciting possibilities for reducing the use of conventional energy resources – which are limited & cause immense pollution. Fermentative production of Ethanol & Bio-hydrogen production are the key techniques to obtain biofuels that can satisfy greater portion of energy demand & both are clean, renewable sources of energy. Bio-hydrogen production serves as a tool for production of Hydrogen, (which is ultimate fuel & energy carrier) by the use of micro-organisms. Some photosynthetic bacteria such as Rhodopseudomonas polustris generate hydrogen using nitrogenase or hydrogenase enzymes as catalylists, while green algae & cynobacteria use water-splitting photosynthetic processes to generate molecular hydrogen. The limitations like lower efficiency, oxygen sensitivity & ambiguous mechanism of hydrogen formation can be overcome by the use of Biotechnology for designing micro-organisms optimized for hydrogen production. This review comprises of points on the basis of which required goals of hydrogen production can be achieved by the use of Biotechnology.