While fulfilling the food demand of an increasing population remains a major global concern, more than one-third of food is lost or wasted in postharvest operations. Reducing the postharvest losses, especially in developing countries, could be a sustainable solution to increase food availability, reduce pressure on natural resources, eliminate hunger and improve farmers’ livelihoods. Cereal grains are the basis of staple food in most of the developing nations, and account for the maximum postharvest losses on a calorific basis among all agricultural commodities. As much as 50%–60% cereal grains can be lost during the storage stage due only to the lack of technical inefficiency. Use of scientific storage methods can reduce these losses to as low as 1%–2%. This paper provides a comprehensive literature review of the grain postharvest losses in developing countries, the status and causes of storage losses and discusses the technological interventions to reduce these losses. The basics of hermetic storage, various technology options, and their effectiveness on several crops in different localities are discussed in detail.

While advantages of biofuel have been widely reported, studies also highlight the challenges in large scale production of biofuel. Cost of ethanol and process energy use in cellulosic ethanol plants are dependent on technologies used for conversion of feedstock. Process modeling can aid in identifying techno-economic bottlenecks in a production process. A comprehensive techno-economic analysis was performed for conversion of cellulosic feedstock to ethanol using some of the common pretreatment technologies: dilute acid, dilute alkali, hot water and steam explosion. Detailed process models incorporating feedstock handling, pretreatment, simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation, ethanol recovery and downstream processing were developed using SuperPro Designer. Tall Fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb) was used as a model feedstock.

BioSTEAM – the Biorefinery Simulation and Techno-Economic Analysis Modules – is an open-source steady state process simulator in Python that enables biorefinery design, simulation, and techno-economic analysis (TEA) under uncertainty through its fast and flexible framework. By incorporating uncertainty as a key feature, BioSTEAM aims to evaluate the landscape of design decisions and scenarios for conceptual and emerging technologies. The applicability of BioSTEAM is demonstrated here in the context of (i) the co-production of biodiesel and ethanol from lipid-cane, and (ii) the production of 2nd generation ethanol from corn stover. Economic metrics evaluated in BioSTEAM closely match benchmark designs modeled in proprietary software (SuperPro Designer, Aspen Plus). Through the automation of unit operation sizing and characterization of utility requirements, process waste streams, and make-up water usage, BioSTEAM also generates data needed for environmental sustainability analyses (e.g., via life cycle assessment). Ultimately, BioSTEAM enables rapid and robust process design, mass and energy balances, and TEA to compare established and early stage technologies and prioritize research, development, and deployment.