張嘉修 博士 Jo-Shu Chang

Bioenergy Engineering – Transforming biochemical engineering toward
clean and sustainable energy production
Jo-Shu Chang ( 張 嘉 修 )
Department of Chemical Engineering
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan 701, Taiwan
Fax: 06-2357146 E-mail: changjs@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Abstract
Our economy and lifestyle heavily rely on the use of major energy source - fossil fuels.
However, the excessive dependence on fossil fuels has caused severe problems due to a seemly
unstoppable rising of their cost, insecurity in their sustainability, as well as their impacts on
global warming and environmental pollution. As a result, technologies leading to generation of
reliable, efficient, and eco-friendly energy have received increasingly attention in recent years.
Energy produced from biomass resources (esp., lignocellulosic materials) has the nature of
CO 2 neutral and recycle of renewable resources, thereby becoming the most promising
alternative to fossil fuels. Biomass energy produced from biological (mainly, fermentation)
means is of particular interest since it is environmentally compatible and less energy intensive.
Hence, many R&D efforts are devoted to biotechnology and bioengineering enabling
conversion of biomass feedstock into gaseous (e.g., H 2 , CH 4 ) and liquid (e.g., ethanol, butanol,
and biodiesel) energy products. This emerging technology requires integration of
interdisciplinary knowledge and has attracted tremendous research momentum within a very
short period of time. This presentation introduces recent advances on bioenergy development
and the technology/engineering that are involved in producing biomass energy. Some
specific examples are given to demonstrate how conventional and innovative biochemical
engineering strategies can be utilized to develop leading edge energy technology or to improve
the performance of existing biomass energy production technology. The aim of this
presentation is to deliver the message that it is now a golden opportunity to open a new era of
biochemical engineering as it can play a pivotal role in future energy development for the
twentieth century.
Keywords: biochemical engineering, biomass energy, carbon dioxide emission, fossil fuels,
lignocellulosic materials, hydrogen, methane, bioethanol, biobutanol, biodiesel