Biorenewable Glossary

Biobased industrial product: Fuels, chemicals, building materials, or electric power or heat produced from biomass. The term may include any energy, commercial or industrial product (other than food or feed) that utilizes biological products or renewable domestic agricultural (plant, animal and marine) or forestry materials.

Biobased products (USDA): Fuels, chemicals, building block material, co-products, electric power or heat produced from biological materials.

Biodegradable: Capable of decomposing rapidly under natural conditions.

Biodiesel: Produced through a process in which biologically-derived oils are combined with alcohol (ethanol or methanol) in the presence of a catalyst to form ethyl or methyl ester. Biodiesel can be made from soybean or canola oils, animal fats, waste vegetable oils, or microalgae oils.

Biodiversity: The relative abundance and variety of plant and animal species and ecosystems within particular habitats.

Bioeconomy: An economy where the basic building blocks for industry and the raw materials for energy are derived from plant/crop-based (i.e. renewable) sources, as opposed to extracted from non-renewable resources such as fossil carbon (fuels).

Bioenergy: 1. Renewable energy produced from organic matter. Organic matter may be used directly as a fuel (e.g. a wood burning stove) or processed into energy-containing liquids and gases (e.g., ethanol, biogas). 2. Conversion of stored chemical energy in biomass into heat and stationary power.

Biofuels: 1. Liquid transportation fuels made from biomass resources. Biofuels include ethanol, biodiesel and methanol. 2. Liquid or gaseous fuels resulting from the conversion of stored chemical energy in biomass, i.e., ethanol, biodiesel, butanol, hydrogen and methane.

Biogas: A combustible gas derived from decomposing biological waste. Biogas normally consists of 50 to 70 percent methane.

Biomass: Organic matter available on a renewable basis. Biomass includes forest and mill residues, agricultural crops and wastes, wood and wood wastes, animal wastes, livestock operation residues, aquatic plants, fast-growing trees and plants, and the biologically-derived fraction of municipal and industrial wastes.

Biomass fuel: Liquid, solid or gaseous fuel produced by conversion of biomass. Biorefinery: An integrated facility that uses biomass as a feedstock for conversion into a range of differentiated products such as transport fuels, bulk and fine chemicals. Often envisioned to use waste biomass for heat or power. The approach is similar to that of petroleum refineries that process crude oil into a broad array of economically valuable products using a wide array of processes and techniques.

Biorenewable resources: Organic materials of recent biological origin; stored chemical energy from the sun.

Cellulose: is an organic compound with the formula (C6H10O5)n, a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to over ten thousand β linked D-glucose (C6H12O6) units.

Cellulosic ethanol: is a biofuel produced from wood, grasses, or the non-edible parts of plants.

Coal: An energy-dense solid fossil fuel and one of the lowest cost energy sources on Earth (2010). Prehistoric plant remains preserved by water and mud from oxidation and biodegradation, placed under high pressure to form a rock-like substance containing high quantities of carbon and hydrogen.

Commodity chemicals: Chemical precursors/building blocks used to make other compounds, i.e. polylactic acid (PLA).

Co-products: Secondary products resulting from the conversion of biomass into biobased products, i.e. dried distiller’s grain with solubles (DDGS).

Denaturing: To make alcohol, etc., unfit for human consumption, without spoiling for other uses. Often used in the context of ethanol production where pure ethanol is denatured with a small amount of gasoline.

Energy crops: Crops grown specifically for their fuel value. These include food crops, such as corn and sugarcane, and nonfood crops, such as poplar trees and switchgrass. Two notable energy crops currently under development are: (1) short-rotation woody crops, which are fast-growing hardwood trees harvested in five to eight years, and (2) herbaceous energy crops, such as perennial grasses, which are harvested annually after taking two to three years to reach full productivity.

Ethanol: 1. A colorless, limpid, volatile, flammable, water-miscible liquid produced by the fermentation of sugars from certain grains and grasses. 2. Made by converting the carbohydrate portion of biomass into sugar, which is then converted into ethanol in a fermentation process similar to brewing beer. Ethanol is the most widely used biofuel today. Embargo: Any restriction imposed on commerce by law, especially a prohibition of trade in a particular commodity.

Feedstock: Any material that is converted to another form or product.

Fermentation: In general terms the use of microbes to convert one material into another through anaerobic respiration. For biofuel it is the converting of sugar into alcohol.

Fossil fuel: Oil, coal, natural gas – nonrenewable energy sources from ancient life.

Fuels: Energy containing substances used in a wide variety of human endeavors from transportation fuels (e.g., gasoline, ethanol, diesel) to stationary fuels systems (e.g., heating oil, natural gas biogas, fission reactor materials).

Hemicellulose: Contains many different sugar monomers. In contrast, cellulose contains only anhydrous glucose. It can be any of several heteropolymers (matrix polysaccharides). While cellulose is crystalline, strong, and resistant to hydrolysis, hemicellulose has a random, amorphous structure with little strength. It is easily hydrolyzed by dilute acid or base as well as myriad hemicellulase enzymes.

Life cycle: The consecutive and interlinked stages of a product system, from raw material acquisition or generation of natural resources to the final disposal.

Life cycle analysis (LCA) : A comprehensive examination of the environmental impacts of a product or package. LCA is focused on the environmental impact of a product during the entirety of its life cycle, from resource extraction to post-consumer waste disposal. Lignin: The cementing agent that holds plant cell walls together. (see also cellulose and hemicellulose) Unlike cellulose and hemicellulose, which are polymers of sugar, lignin is a fairly irregular polymer that is difficult to biodegrade. The recalcitrance of lignin to degradation is one of the key hurdles to making low-cost biofuels from lignocellilose biomass.

Marginal cropland: Land with conditions that make it difficult to grow crops.

Natural fibers: Lignocelluloses or bundles of long, thin plant cells with walls of lignocelluloses. Polymers derived from biobased chemicals.

Natural gas: Gaseous fossil fuel consisting primarily of methane (50-90 percent). Can contain ethane, propane, butane and pentane.

Perennial: Living over a period of many years, especially refers to plants. For biomass feedstocks perennial crops are attractive because: 1) they generally require fewer farm operations per unit output and 2) they often have lower environmental impact than annual crops (e.g., lower soil erosion and nitrogen leaching rates). Petroleum: An oily liquid solution of hydrocarbons occurring naturally in the rock strata of certain geological formations.

Petroleum fuels: 1. Liquid fossil fuel. 2. Naturally occurring flammable liquids found in rock formations within the earth. 3. Complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights that are separated by fractional distillation.

Renewables: Energy sources that are constantly renewed by natural processes. These include non-carbon technologies such as solar energy, hydropower and wind, as well as technologies based on biomass. Life cycle analyses are required to assess the extent to which such biomass based technologies may limit net carbon emissions.

Renewable energy: Renewable energy refers to several energy sources that have little in common from a technology standpoint, but share one characteristic – they all produce electricity or thermal energy without depleting resources. Renewable energy sources include water, biomass, wind, solar, earth and waste stream energy.

Renewable resource: Natural resources that are capable of regeneration. Renewable resources essentially can never be exhausted because, with proper management, they can be continuously produced (e.g., tree biomass, fresh water, and fish).

Switchgrass: A panic grass (Panicum virgatum) native to North America and used as rangeland forage and hay.

Sustainable: An ecosystem condition in which biodiversity, renewability and resource productivity are maintained over time. Sustainable biorenewable resources: Resources that renew themselves at a rate sufficient to ensure their availability for use by the next generation.

Sources: www.biorenew.iastate.edu/resources/glossary-of-biorenewables-terms.htm

The history of ethanol in America. Produced by Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom, a program of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry and the Oklahoma State Department of Education, 2008. .www.clover.okstate.edu/fourh/aitc/lessons/upper/biofuel3.pdf original source: www.agclassroom.org/ok