Lope Tabil1, Phani Adapa1 and Mahdi Kashaninejad2

1Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Saskatchewan 2Department of Food Science & Technology, Gorgan University of Agricultural

Sciences and Natural Resources Gorgan

1Canada

2Iran

1. Introduction

1.1 Sources of biomass

The two main sources of biomass for energy generation are purpose-grown energy crops and waste materials (Larkin et al., 2004). Energy crops, such as Miscanthus and short rotation woody crops (coppice), are cultivated mainly for energy purposes and are associated with the food vs. fuels debate, which is concerned with whether land should be used for fuel rather than food production. The use of residues from agriculture, such as barley, canola, oat and wheat straw, for energy generation circumvents the food vs. fuel dilemma and adds value to existing crops (Chico-Santamarta et al., 2009). In fact, these residues represent an abundant, inexpensive and readily available source of renewable lignocellulosic biomass (Liu et al., 2005).