The increase in biomass related research and applications is driven by overall higher interest in sustainable energy and food sources, by increased awareness of potentials and pitfalls of using biomass for energy, by the concerns for food supply and by multitude of potential biomass uses as a source material in organic chemistry, bringing in the concept of bio-refinery. The present, two volume, Biomass book reflects that trend in broadening of biomass related research. Its total of 40 chapters spans over diverse areas of biomass research, grouped into 9 themes.

The first volume starts with the Biomass Sustainability and Biomass Systems sections, dealing with broader issues of biomass availability, methods for biomass assessment and potentials for its sustainable use. The increased tendency to take a second look at how much biomass is really and sustainably available is reflected in these sections, mainly applied to biomass for energy use. Similarly, Biomass for Energy section specifically groups chapters that deal with the application of biomass in the energy field. Notably, the chapters in this section are focused to those applications that deal with waste and second generation biofuels, minimizing the conflict between biomass as feedstock and biomass for energy. Next is the Biomass Processing section which covers various aspects of the second-generation bio-fuel generation, focusing on more sustainable processing practices. The section on Biomass Production covers short — rotation (terrestrial) energy crops and aquatic feedstock crops.

The second volume continues the theme of production with the Biomass Cultivation section, further expanding on cultivation methods for energy, the feedstock crops and microbial biomass production. It is followed by the Bio-reactors section dealing with various aspects of bio-digestion and overall bio-reactor processes. Two more chapters dealing with aquatic microbial and phytoplankton growth technologies are grouped into the Aquatic Biomass section, followed by the Novel Biomass Utilization section which concludes the second volume.

I sincerely hope that the wide variety of topics covered in this two-volume edition will readily find the audience among researchers, students, policy makers and all others with interest in biomass as a renewable and (if we are careful) sustainable source of organic material for ever wider spectrum of its potential uses. I also hope that further exploration of second-generation energy sources from biomass will help in resolving the conflict of biomass for food and biomass for energy.

Miodrag Darko Matovic

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada