Chapter 29 Industrial Biocatalysis Edited by Peter Grunwald Copyright © 2014 Pan Stanford Publishing Pte. Ltd. ISBN 978-981-4463-88-1 (Hardcover), 978-981-4463-89-8 (eBook) www.panstanford.com Enzyme-Catalysed Processes in a Potential Algal Biorefinery 29.1 Introduction The days of using fossil fuels without due consideration of the environment are now over. Rising CO 2 emissions resulting in undesirable climate efects and the increasing difficulty of accessing conventional fossil fuel reserves requires an urgent rethink of priorities and consequently the identification and development of viable alternative energy sources. Even with improvements in efficiency and better energy distribution networks, the demand for energy from developing nations will keep increasing, causing GHG emissions to further rise (Seinfield and Pandis, 2012). Some of the options available for renewable energy generation include wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear, wave and biomass. Biomass is of particular interest because it is our original source of energy considering that even fossil fuels are derived from biomass, as Bhavish Patel, Pongsathorn Dechatiwongse, and Klaus Hellgardt Imperial College London, Department of Chemical Engineering, Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, SW7 2AZ, UK K.hellgardt@imperial.ac.uk