What is biofuel?
Q: What is biofuel?
A: Biofuel is fuel from recently lifeless or living biological material. It is different to fossil fuels which come from long dead biological material.
Q: What forms can biofuels take?
A: Biofuels can be in the form of solid, liquid or gas.
Q: Where are most biofuel companies based?
A: Most biofuel companies are mainly located in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Q: How does the Los Alamos National Lab convert pollution into renewable biofuel?
A: The Los Alamos National Lab has developed technologies that allow pollution to be converted into renewable biofuel.
Q: What are agrofuels?
A: Agrofuels are biofuels that are produced from specific plants, rather than from waste processes such as landfill or recycled material.
Q: How do plants get converted into gas and liquid fuels?
A: There are two common ways to convert plants into gas and liquid fuels - one way is to grow crops that are high in sugar (e.g Sugar cane) or starch (e.g corn), and then use yeast to ferment ethyl alcohol (ethanol). The second way is to grow plants that contain high amounts of vegetable oil, such as palm oil, soybean and algae, which can then be heated so their viscosity reduces and they can be burned directly in a diesel engine, or chemically processed to produce biodiesel fuel.
Q: How have wood and its by-products been used for thousands of years as a source of energy?
A: For thousands of years wood and its by-products have been converted into various types of biofuels such as charcoal, wood gas, methanol or ethanol fuel. It's also possible to make cellulosic ethanol from non-edible plant parts but this process can be expensive. Solid biomass such as firewood has also been used for centuries for heating homes and cooking food
