Growth and Productivity of Euphorbia Lathyris : A Biofuel Plant

Fossil fuels cause green house gas emissions and world has agreed to reduce green house gas emissions. Renewable sources of energy obtained from biomass offer a great future of clean and green fuel. Plants as biofuel are very important and during last three decades authors have worked on various projects of Government of India on Bio-fuels. Hydrocarbons from plants were propounded, as a source of bio-fuel, by famous Nobel laureate Professor Melvin Calvin, who initiated the researches on Euphorbia lathyris in U.S.A. and encouraged Professor Ashwani Kumar to carry out work on this plant in semi-arid and arid regions of Rajasthan which are similar to Arizona in several respects. The hydrocarbons which contain around 30 per cent tri-terpenoids can be converted in to biodiesel. Our group has carried out investigations in this field for the last 30 years and the present book is pioneer work on improving growth, hydrocarbon yield and productivity of Euphorbia lathyris . It is strongly recommended to students, researchers , industries working in the area of biomass and bio-fuel for green house gas mitigation.