Fast Microwave-Assisted Pyrolysis of Wastes for Biofuels Production

Non-renewable energies and renewable energies still remain to be imbalance up to today, with the over dependency on finite fossil fuels. The pros and cons of each energy technology have been discussed briefly, whereby among all those technologies, bioenergy shows great potential in the energy sector. To produce bioenergy, 2nd generation biofuels can be produced from waste materials of two main forms such as lignocellulosic and non-lignocellulosic origins, without competing with the food resources. To date, one of the most feasible thermochemical methods—pyrolysis can be  set with fast heating rate and enhanced with microwave technology which is also known as fast microwave-assisted pyrolysis in order to produce high yield and high energy-dense biofuels with rapid processing. The fundamentals of pyrolysis and microwave technologies have been critically described along with their combination in operation setup for biofuel production. In this book chapter, various lignocellulosic and non-lignocellulosic wastes such as municipal wastes, agricultural wastes, plastics, and others have been reviewed as feedstock for fast microwave-assisted pyrolysis. Overall, this technology is viable however comes with the challenges in the scaling up stage and production issues. Nonetheless, with the current development, fast microwave-assisted pyrolysis can be a great form of waste-to-energy (WtE) or Energy from Waste (EfW) technology to be applied in the energy industry.