Preface

The world is going through major environmental changes and new energy demands are required. With the imminent shortage of energy sources based on fossil, new renewable energy source have been used for both purposes as fuel as well for industrial power generation. However, to access these renewable matrices, it is necessary a full understanding of the process in order to reach biofuels at low cost. In this sense, biotechnology comes as a new science that combines biology of various knowledge areas such as biochemistry, microbiology, enzymology, molecular and systems biology. The use of microorganisms in the processing of biomass in order to produce biofuels such as ethanol or biodiesel, as well as derivatives with biotechnological potential has been an alternative to implement the so-called biorefinery.

In the following chapters of this work the current panorama of biofuel and the using of fungi in biotechnology for the production of bioethanol and biodiesel will be discussed. In this sense, an overview of the process and the global biofuels market will be presented, followed by the basic biology of degradation of plant biomass, enzymology and regulation of gene expression of genes encoding enzymes that degrade plant biomass. In a second step, the processes already established will be presented in biorefinery such as large-scale production of hydrolytic enzymes as well as the general and specific aspects of biodiesel production. Subsequently, the presentation of enzymes used in the degradation of biomass in its immobilized form and the exploration of new enzymes will be discussed in addition to the benefits of using consortium of microorganisms for use in biorefinery. Finally the current situation of biomass degradation processes and production of biofuel within the scope of ‘omics’ sciences and the integration of these processes from the point of view of synthetic and systems biology will be discussed.

We hope this book will contribute both in the academic field but also in the industrial area to the understanding and implementation of biofuel production worldwide.