Ethanol produced from various biobased sources (bioethanol) has been gaining high attention lately due to its potential to cut down net emissions of carbon dioxide while reducing burgeoning world dependence on fossil fuels. Global ethanol production has increased more than six-fold from 18 billion liters at the turn of the century to 110 billion liters in 2019, only to fall to 98.6 billion liters in 2020 due to the pandemic. Sugar cane and corn have been used as the major feedstocks for ethanol production. Lignocellulosic biomass has recently been considered as another potential feedstock due to its non-food competing status and its availability in very large quantities. This paper reviews recent developments and current status of commercial production of ethanol across the world with a focus on the technological aspects. The review includes the ethanol production processes used for each type of feedstock, both currently practiced at commercial scale and still under developments, and current production trends in various regions and countries in the world.

During the last half-century, the CO₂ concentration in the world’s atmosphere has increased from 310 p.p.m. to over 380 p.p.m. This is due to the widespread usage of fossil fuels as a main source of energy. Modeling forecasts have shown that this trend will continue to rise and reducing CO₂ emissions is a challenging task for multi-stakeholders, including research institutions. The UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) has stressed that stakeholders need to work together to achieve a NetZero target. Technologies involving absorbents for the capture of CO₂ from a gas mixture are energy-intensive. Carbon adsorption and conversion (CAC) approaches have been gaining attention recently since these technologies can mitigate CO₂ emissions. In this review, materials ranging from advanced carbon-based materials to natural resources-based materials will be reviewed. Adsorption and conversion capacities as well as the scalability possibility of these technologies for solving the CO₂ emission problem will be investigated. The review, therefore, is timely and meaningful concerning the net zero emission targets set by countries and developmental organizations worldwide.

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are among the most promising electrochemical technologies for high-efficiency, low-emission power generation. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in SOFC materials, system architectures, and commercialization pathways, with emphasis on intermediate-temperature operation to enhance durability and reduce costs. Developments in electrolyte materials are analyzed alongside progress in anode and cathode advances in materials. At the system level, the manuscript compares electrolyte-supported and anode-supported configurations, examines sealing technologies and thermal cycling durability in planar stacks, and discusses fuel preparation strategies with emphasis on sulfur removal from hydrocarbon fuels. The integration of direct internal reforming (DIR) SOFC systems and the role of anode gas recycle in improving efficiency and thermal management are also addressed. The high-temperature exhaust from SOFCs supports cogeneration and trigeneration applications, enabling additional power or heating/cooling through thermodynamic cycles such as Rankine and Brayton, thereby enhancing overall system efficiency. Finally, the review examines the status of commercial SOFC deployment, presenting case studies of leading industrial players such as Bloom Energy (USA), Ceres Power (UK), and SolydEra (Italy). The paper concludes with an assessment of the key challenges and perspectives for SOFC commercialization in stationary power generation, including cost reduction, stack lifetime extension, large-scale manufacturing, and system integration strategies required to achieve widespread market adoption.

Reducing CO₂ emissions is urgently needed to slow down the impacts of climate change. CO₂ capture using an amine solution has been developed and implemented at pilot and commercial scales. However, amine scrubbing, in particular, produces a lot of degraded solvents as waste and is energy intensive. Solid sorbents have been used to overcome these drawbacks. In this work, waste biomass-derived carbon materials were developed and characterized. Advanced thermal chemical processes, i.e., hydrothermal and pyrolysis processes, were applied to produce materials from agrifood waste, such as soybean and okara. It was found that functional groups (-C=O and -OH) appeared in the synthesized materials, implying the generation of surface oxygenated groups. Preliminary results showed that synthesized activated carbons were obtained with good yields and relatively high surface areas, which may be applied as CO₂ adsorption materials to solve CO₂ emission problems.