Steam Explosion Pretreatment: Biomass Waste Utilization for Methane Production

Lignocellulosic biomass as a second-generation biofuel resource such as waste from agricultural, forester industry, and unutilized wood and non-wood biomass was widely reported to use it as feedstock for methane production. As the carbon-neutral resources, biomass waste conversion for biofuel is in line with the SDGs 7 and 15 goal that can meet the needs and qualify to the standard of sustainable consumption and production pattern, and increasing the renewable energy. The wood and non-wood unutilized biomass and biomass waste are commonly faced with the recalcitrant character of the lignocellulose complex (LCC) which impacted the digestion process of the methane fermentation. Steam explosion pretreatment was enhanced the methane production by breaking the LCC into cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin-derived product generated from the pretreatment process. Those steam-exploded products were reported effective in the conversion process into methane. The combination of steam explosion pretreatment which is an environmentally friendly pretreatment, and the use of carbon-neutral resources will provide the green biofuel which helps decrease the greenhouse gasses from the biomass waste dumping process and convert it into sustainable biofuel i.e. methane. This chapter will describe the steam explosion system development on the utilization of biomass for methane production, and the action of methane production enhancement.