Biomass materials have been a principal source of energy ever since man used wood to build fires. But nowdays, biomass is being developed into an interesting and alternative source of energy. Biomass is the term commonly used in describing any form of organic or biological material which can be used or burnt to provide useful energy. Biomass is by definition is a renewable energy source as it comes from living things such as plants and vegetable matter and by waste that most living creatures produce.
Biomass has an enormous potential as being a serious energy source, and the conversion of these waste materials, which would have otherwise been discarded, into biofuels is an interesting and exciting prospect that has a lot of potential. In its broadest definition, any biomass material that could be burnt or used as a fuel may be called a biofuel. Today, biofuels are becoming the most commonly used fuel type and a major source of energy production in many different countries.
So how can we use biomass as a form of fuel. Well, biomass is organic based matter that once come from living things and organisms, in the same way that fossil fuels are derived from oil, coal, or natural gas which themselves were formed deep within the Earth over many millions of years from dead plants and animal remains. Biomass materials are used to produce many different forms of energy, for example, heat, electricity and more importantly in liquid fuels used for transport such as biodiesel and ethanol.
There are many different types of biofuel but the two main and most widely used types are: Biodiesel which is a heavy oil based product made from vegetable and waste cooking oils instead of petroleum and Ethanol and other such alcohol based fuels distilled from corn, maize, grain and other such plant matter that can be mixed or blended with, or substituted directly for gasoline.
Biofuel allows farmers to turn vacant land or excess crops into a fuel with ethanol based crops now commonly being grown across the land. Ethanol is an alcohol based biofuel, since its name ethyl-alcohol, or ethanol for short, which can be created from common renewable sources such as oil seeds, corn, starchy crops, potatoes and sugar cane, to name a few as they can be broken down to produce a variety of sugars. Most ethanol based biofuels are fermented from corn.
Over the years, ethanol based biofuels have become the main alternative to gasoline as it can be easily used to power combustion engines in cars, either on its own or by being mixed with standard gasoline or other such automotive fuels. Gasoline when mixed with ethanol produces a fuel that is commonly referred to as: Gasohol.
Gasohol is a viable alternative form of fuel compared to petroleum based oil products. There are different blends of gasoline and ethanol available no at the gas stations with each one being identified by the letter, "E" for Ethanol, and a number digit to indicate the percentage amount of ethanol blended into the fuel. So for example, E10 contains 10 percent of ethanol and 90 percent of gasoline, E5 will contain 5 percent of ethanol and 95 percent of gasoline, while a much richer ethanol mixture of E85 contains about 85 percent of ethanol and only 15 percent of gasoline.
Ethanol is generally referred to as an oxygenate, which means that it can increase the amount of oxygen in the base fuel that it is mixed with. The extra oxygen content acts like an octane booster engine performance. However, when ethanol is used on its own as an automated fuel instead of regular gasoline, the engine used must be adapted to run with the new gasohol mixture. This is due to burn efficiently, ethanol fueled engines require a higher compression ratios.
Also ethanol fueled engines burn their fuel more cleanly than regular gasoline engines producing less emissions and air born pollutants, and as its an alcohol based fuel, the exhaust fumes from the tail pipe is water vapor and a much reduced amount CO2 emissions resulting in ethanol fueled engines thinking longer and running smoother.
Today, most of the major car manufacturers are building and designing ethanol powered cars with many fuel companies adding ethanol fueling pumps to their gas and petrol stations. The use of ethanol as a major fuel source to power vehicles is without doubt on the rise, as many ethanol fueled cars and vehicles give increased power output as well as better fuel economy by as much as 20% higher mileage than conventional vehicles that just run on standard gasoline alone.
One of the many advantages of Ethanol fuel is that its biodegradable because it's made from organic and natural elements, so if you spill it, it will not harm the environment. However, the main disadvantage is that to produce the large quantities of ethanol required to power our vehicles requires large numbers of crops. Therefore, producers and farmers would require more agricultural land to plant biofuel crops and far less land for food crop production.