Figure 3.
Potential biofuels production from lignocellulosic biomass available in South Africa [6] (assuming only 50–70% was used) when advanced second-generation biochemical and thermochemical technologies are available. Optimal biofuels yields estimated when the appropriate technologies are available, including (i) biochemical processing of maize-to-ethanol = 460 l ton−1 [115] or lignocellulosic-to-ethanol = 280 l ton−1 (only polysaccharide fraction) [116], and (ii) thermochemical upgrade of bio-oils from fast pyrolysis = 310 l ton−1 [117] and thermochemical biomass-to-liquid (BtL) = 570 l ton−1 [82].