Review Potential emissions reduction in road transport sector using biofuel in developing countries A.M. Liaquat * , M.A. Kalam, H.H. Masjuki, M.H. Jayed Centre for Energy Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia article info Article history: Received 23 March 2010 Received in revised form 17 June 2010 Accepted 5 July 2010 Keywords: Emission Air pollution, health hazards Environment Biofuel Developing countries abstract Use of biofuels as transport fuel has high prospect in developing countries as most of them are facing severe energy insecurity and have strong agricultural sector to support production of biofuels from energy crops. Rapid urbanization and economic growth of developing countries have spurred air pollution especially in road transport sector. The increasing demand of petroleum based fuels and their combustion in internal combustion (IC) engines have adverse effect on air quality, human health and global warming. Air pollution causes respiratory problems, adverse effects on pulmonary function, leading to increased sickness absenteeism and induces high health care service costs, premature birth and even mortality. Production of biofuels promises substantial improvement in air quality through reducing emission from biofuel operated automotives. Some of the developing countries have started biofuel production and utilization as transport fuel in local market. This paper critically reviews the facts and prospects of biofuel production and utilization in developing countries to reduce environmental pollution and petro dependency. Expansion of biofuel industries in developing countries can create more jobs and increase productivity by non-crop marginal lands and wastelands for energy crops plantation. Contribution of India and China in biofuel industry in production and utilization can dramatically change worldwide biofuel market and leap forward in carbon cut as their automotive market is rapidly increasing with a souring proportional rise of GHG emissions. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Mainly, air quality problems are caused by vehicle emissions (Zhang and Batterman, 2010). In recent years, due to the rapid vehicle growths in the world, exhaust emissions in developing countries have been growing strongly which is adversely affecting many populations (Uherek et al., in press; Oanh et al., 2010; Oener and Altun, 2009). There are 700 million light duty vehicles, auto- mobiles, light trucks, SUVs and minivans, on roadways in the world. These numbers are projected to increase 1.3 billion by 2030, and 2 billion vehicles by 2050, where most of the increase is coming from developing countries (Balat and Balat, 2009). The combustion of petroleum based fuels has adverse impacts on the environment as well as human health (Oener and Altun, 2009). It has been esti- mated that approximately 0.8 million annual deaths from ambient air pollution in cities of developing countries (Roy, 2009). Accord- ing to estimation by the World Health Organization (WHO), urban air pollution causes approximately 360,000 premature deaths in Asia each year (Stone et al., 2010). The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of United Nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that the observed global warming over the last 50 years is likely due to increase of greenhouse gas emission such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. Scientific data alarmed that hundreds of millions of people could lose their lives if average global temperature increases by more than 2  C(Shuit et al., 2009). Recently, much attention has been focused to the development of cleaner alternative fuels for reducing air pollution and for reducing the dependence on fossil fuels (Zhang et al., 2010). Therefore, it became a global issue to develop such clean fuel which is techni- cally feasible, domestically available and environmentally accept- able (Bouaid et al., 2009; Han et al., 2009). In order to raise vital energy and to encourage sustainable environmental stewardship, there is a role for biofuels in the developing world (Hubbard, 2010). The most feasible biofuels for vehicles being considered globally are biodiesel and bioethanol. Bioethanol can be produced from a number of crops including sugarcane, corn, sorghum, grains, potatos, etc. Whereas, Biodiesel is the fuel that can be produced from straight vegetable oils, edible and non-edible, recycled waste vegetable oils, and animal fat (Jianxin et al., 2007; Agarwal, 2007). In general, biofuels are considered as offering many benefits including sustainability, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, * Corresponding author at: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tel.: þ603 79674448; fax: þ603 79675317. E-mail address: liaquat2@yahoo.com (A.M. Liaquat). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Atmospheric Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/atmosenv 1352-2310/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2010.07.003 Atmospheric Environment 44 (2010) 3869e3877