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Chemistry and Technology of Fuels and Oils, Vol. 46, No.2, 2010
CURRENT PROBLEMS. Alternative Fuels Technology
NEW METHODS OF MANUFACTURING ALTERNATIVE FUELS FROM
RENEWABLE FEEDSTOCK SOURCES
V. A. Vinokurov, A. V. Barkov, L. M. Krasnopol’skaya,
and E. S. Mortikov
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
I. M. Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas. G. F. Gauze Research Institute on Searching for
New Antibiotics, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. N. D. Zelinskii Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian
Academy of Sciences. Translated from Khimiya i Tekhnologiya Topliv i Masel, No. 2, pp. 9 – 11, March – April,
2010.
0009-3092/10/4602–0075 © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
The prospects for using wastes from cellulose-containing feedstock for manufacturing a broad spectrum
of motor fuel components (biodiesel, bioethanol, biogasoline) are examined. The possibility of biosynthesis
of lipids similar in composition and properties to soy oil was demonstrated on the example of fungal
strains Agrocybe aegerita and Lentinus edodes. These lipids can serve as an intermediate product for
synthesis of biodiesel fuel due to the high content of higher fatty acid triglycerides. The results of catalytic
processing of bioethanol from a wood substrate obtained after solid-phase cultivation of fungi in a mixture
of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons are reported.
Industrial biotechnology, despite its indisputable importance, has nevertheless not found a worthy position
in the domestic oil and gas sector. This also applies to production of biofuels, widely developed in Europe and
America, and collaboration in oil recovery by microbial methods (MEOR), biological treatment of oil-polluted
soils, and other areas. An exception, unfortunately, is production of biopolymers of microbial and plant origin
based on xanthan and guar resins, used in large volumes in drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
The studies conducted in the Department of Physical and Colloid Chemistry at I. M. Gubkin Russian
State University of Oil and Gas are aimed at overcoming this lag by using new biotechnological methods.
In the RF, production of biofuels cannot be considered as a serious alternative to production of fossil
fuels for a number of reasons:
• lack of tax relief;
• necessity of turning over large areas of arable land to industrial oil and sugar-containing crops;
• imperfection of methods and high cost of processing biomaterials;
• possible decrease in food feedstock resources and increase in their cost.
The last reason makes it necessary to search for and widely utilize cheap large-tonnage industrial biowastes,
primarily cellulose-containing feedstock wastes (straw, wood, etc.). The data on resources of wood wastes in
the RF are clearly understated: approximately 36 million mm
3
a year. According to preliminary estimates, the