Original Article

Bioenergy research in Brazil:

A bibliometric evaluation of the
BIOEN research program
Roney Fraga Souza , Faculty of Economics, Federal University of Mato Grosso, Cuiabá, Brazil
Júlio Cesar de Carvalho Miranda , School of Engineering, Federal University of Mato Grosso,
Cuiabá, Brazil
Jaim José da Silva Júnior , Faculty of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine, University of Brasília,
Brasília, Brazil
José Maria da Silveira , Economics Institute, University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil

Received February 08 2022; Revised May 29 2022; Accepted September 26 2022;

View online November 22, 2022 at Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com);
DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441; Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023)

Abstract: This article discusses the scientific production carried out by the largest bioenergy research
program in Brazil, the São Paulo Research Foundation Bioenergy Research Program (BIOEN-FAPESP),
in the period from 2008 to 2019. The study draws on a list of BIOEN publications on the Web of Science
(WoS) platform, containing over 1000 articles, grouped under ResearcherID H-6149-2012. The methods
applied in the study were based on the information specific to each article and involved the construction
of networks including authors, countries, research subjects, and direct citations. Communities were built
based on network properties and their content was extracted from articles abstracts, titles and keywords,
using text mining techniques. We also obtained quantitative measures for BIOEN scientific output. The
analysis found that BIOEN produced relevant knowledge, and contributed to the emergence of new
research areas in the bioenergy sector. Overall, BIOEN was decisive for the advancement of bioenergy
research in Brazil, and resulted in the expansion of the knowledge base for ethanol production. © 2022
Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Key words: ethanol; bioenergy; biotechnology; scientific output; network analysis

Introduction matrix. In 2017, sugarcane crops occupied approximately

10 million hectares or 13% of Brazil’s total agricultural

B
ioenergy can be described briefly as the renewable
energy derived from recently living biological material
called biomass.1 Bioenergy occurs in forms such as
transportation fuels, heat, electricity, among others. Brazil is a
successful example of a country using bioenergy in its energy
area. In the same year, ethanol had a share of 50% of the
national fuel matrix of light vehicles, and bioelectricity from
sugarcane bagasse accounted for 17% of energy consumption
in the country.2 Starting with an ethanol blend mandate,
established by the Federal government in 1931 and reinforced

Correspondence to: Júlio Cesar de Carvalho Miranda, School of Engineering, Federal University of Mato Grosso, 78060-900,
Cuiabá, MT, Brazil. E-mail: juliomiranda@ufmt.com

© 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 191

Souza et al.
by the PROÁLCOOL plan in 1975, sugarcane biomass and
bioenergy have historically received much attention and
investment from the Brazilian public and private sectors,
resulting in a competitive bioeconomy.3–7
Souza8 states that a new phase of bioenergy research
took place in Brazil with the launch of flex-fuel cars in the
automobile industry in 2003. The author indicates that the
incorporation of biotechnological tools in research has
opened many doors for advances in genetics and the use of
sugarcane biomass for bioproducts. Since then, increasing
investment in basic and applied bioenergy research in
Brazil has led to the emergence of a multidisciplinary
knowledge base, characterized by a variety of research areas,
institutions, and subjects.
Like Brazil, countries such as South Africa and Malaysia
are investing in adding value to their vast biological
resources.9 The European Union, Japan, and the USA, see
their biological resources as a path to reindustrialization,
and for China and India, biotechnology seems like a
growing field in which they can naturally compete as major
players.9 As a result of this international trend, countries
such as: Sweden,10 Malaysia,11 Thailand,12 India,13,14
Australia,15 Germany,16 the African Caribbean Pacific
(ACP) countries,17 and the USA18 are investing in bioenergy
scientific research programs. In Brazil, the largest bioenergy
research effort is the São Paulo State Research Foundation
(FAPESP) Bioenergy Research Program (BIOEN).19,20
In this context, the main goals of the present bibliometric
analysis are to identify and analyze recent scientific output
trends and performance achieved by Brazilian bioenergy
research efforts through the BIOEN program. Launched
in 2008, BIOEN aims to promote and articulate research
activity and develop academic and industrial laboratories to
promote the advancement of knowledge and its application
in areas related to the production of bioenergy. Since its
first investments, BIOEN has granted 644 scholarships in
Brazil, 64 scholarships abroad, with 38 local agreements,
and 27 international agreements (https://bv.fapesp.br/
en/16/bioenergy-research-bioen/). Between 2007 and 2017,
approximately US$42 million has been invested in research
in the five divisions of BIOEN.
According to the BIOEN profile on the Google Scholar
platform, by March of 2020, knowledge production directly
related to the program accounted for approximately 1200
scientific articles and included over 100 research subjects.
There is evidence that, in a complex and multidisciplinary
research program such as BIOEN, bibliometric analyses
contribute to mapping scientific outputs, fostering
cooperation, and transferring knowledge.21 Lamarca et al.22
investigated all BIOEN-related projects up to the year 2014,
192 © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441
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Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program
and concluded that there was little investment in logistics,
and a greater concentration of related studies in the field
and industry stages. In turn, the participation of the BIOEN
program in the international biomass research network was
investigated by Bueno et al.,23 which identified the Brazilian
predominance in the generation of scientific knowledge
related to sugarcane biomass.
Taking into account the previous research efforts, in this
article we aim to answer the following questions: What are
the growth trajectories of the papers, authors, and research
subjects of scientific articles linked to projects financed by
the BIOEN program? What are the patterns of collaboration
between countries and research subjects in the BIOEN
scientific articles? What are the main contents and keywords
among BIOEN research efforts?
The material included this work was a list of publications
on the WEB of Science (WoS) platform, created for use as
a common warehouse of BIOEN articles indexed to the
main WoS collection. In total, 1101 scientific articles were
evaluated. All papers are written in English and have at least
one Brazilian author. The scientific output of BIOEN also
includes other types of documents, such as books, research
reports, patents, seminars, and congress proceedings. This
study focused on the documents compiled under the query
ResearcherID H-6149-2012 (https://www.webofscience.
com/wos/author/rid/H-6149-2012) and assumed that the
sample represents the scientific output of the main bioenergy
research program conducted in Brazil in the last two decades.
Hence, besides measuring recent developments in Brazilian
bioenergy research efforts, this article aims to contribute to
future research in the field and to help policymakers to assess
the impacts of resource allocation decisions made in the
past.24,25
Scientific output of the BIOEN
program: Materials and methods
The set of publications available in the ResearchID H-6149-
2012 website was exported to a BibTex file, containing
information specific to each article, as made available by the
Web of Science. A total of 1001 scientific articles matched
all the fields required by the analysis. With these data, it was
possible to produce the descriptive statistics of the BIOEN
program, such as main authors, journals, and other variables
that serve as proxies to evaluate its scientific output. Thus,
the paper evolves to social network analysis, based on
BIOEN descriptive data, which were processed using R
software26 and the bibliometrix package.27 To visualize
social networks, we used VOSviewer software.28

Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program
To understand the collaboration between countries,
we built a network where nodes are countries and links
occur when two authors from different countries are
co-authors of an article.29 The thickness of links between
two countries captures the number of articles with
partnerships from the respective countries. Regarding the
methodology employed to measure countries’ performance
in the BIOEN scientific network, if a paper has authors
from different nationalities, an algorithm was developed to
split the authorship into equal parts among the countries.
For example, an article with 10 authors from 10 different
countries counts as 0.1 of a publication for each country.
The same methodology was applied to map and visualize
the network of co-authorship.
The articles are classified by research subjects, according
to the Web of Science clategory. The articles in the database
formed groups of research subjects, in which the size of the
node captures the numbers of papers in each subject and the
links represent the co-occurrence of subjects among them.
To discover the groups, we used the algorithms proposed
by Newman and Girvan,30 which split the network into
communities based on measurements of edge betweenness
centrality and the network modularity.
The methodology used to identify and evaluate the content
of BIOEN publications was based on building a direct
citation network.31,32 The procedure sought patterns of
specialization based on citations of all articles with BIOEN’s
ResearchID.
Each article is a node of the network, and the citation of one
article by another generates an arc (or link, or edge). Isolated
papers – retrieved by the database collection procedure but
not cited by any other document – are eliminated from the
sample.32 The idea is to capture the influential papers and the
rise of new subjects at a specific moment.
The detailed version of the methodology consists of three
steps:
Step 1 – create a citation network: If an article cites another
article, considering only the papers in the database, there is a
link between two network nodes.
Step 2 – find groups among the citation network: Identify
groups of articles that are connected between them.
Step 3 – find the content of each group: Based on the
keywords of the articles. This step applied the method
tf-idf to sort the importance of each keyword in the
group, conditioned on its relecancy intragroup and
intergroup.
In Step 1 we created a direct citation network where
network nodes are articles and links occur when an article
cites another article related to the BIOEN project.31 We
excluded articles that did not cite others or were not cited by
© 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441
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Souza et al.
other articles in the network. Starting with Step 2, we looked
at articles that cite each other and do not cite articles from
outside the component. 30 After the classification of the new
citations network into groups, we highlighted the size of each
group and its relevance at BIOEN scientific output. However,
the content of the groups was not yet known, and we took
Step 3 to define it. To understand the content of each group,
we applied the tf-idf method to assign a weight to each group’s
keywords, considering their intragroup and intergroup
frequency.34,35 The tf-idf weight of term i in document j is
given by
 N 
wi , j  tfi , j  log   (1)
 idfi 
The term frequency, tf, is a measure of the importance
of the term within a particular document. The inverse
document frequency, idf, is a measure of the general
importance of the term, which is the log of the number of all
documents divided by the number of documents containing
the term, thus enabling common terms to be filtered out. A
high tf-idf therefore means the term has a high frequency in a
particular document and a low frequency in the entire sample
of documents.36
Scientific output of BIOEN program:
Results and discussion
Bioenergy current status in Brazil
Brazil is widely known for its sugarcane and soybean crops.
This two plants ensure large-scale production of biofuels,
mostly during harvesting time, which means a bioeconomy
based, basically, on ethanol and biodiesel. As can be seen
from Fig. 1, the state of São Paulo stands out in terms of
bioethanol production. The installed capacity for ethanol
production in Brazil, according to ANP (Agência Nacional
do Petróleo – Petroleum National Agency) is estimated as
23 and 41 billion liters per year for, respectively anhydrous
and hydrated ethanol. It can also be observed, from the
maps, that Rio Grande do Sul stands out in terms of biodiesel
production. Regarding biodiesel, the sector generated a
demand equivalent to around 5.3 billion liters in 2018, while
its installed capacity surpasses the production of 7.7 billion
liters per year, allowing this market to increase its demand for
the short to medium term.
Considering ethanol production, Fig. 2 shows an average
increase of 3.6% over 10 years, even counting the beginning
of the COVID-19 pandemic. During these 10 years there
were periods when there were good harvests of corn, which
193

Souza et al.
Figure 1. Ethanol and biodiesel production in 2020 by
Brazilian state (in million liters).88
sustained the increasing ethanol production in Mato Grosso
state, for example.
Mato Grosso state also counts as an emerging biodiesel
producer. As can be seen from Fig. 3, the major raw material
used for biodiesel production is soybean, which is mostly
produced in the referred Brazilian state. Between 2010 and
194 © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441
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Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program
2020, Brazilian biodiesel production increased at a rate of
9.2% per year. This increase is associated with technological
improvement, internal market demands, and a better
distribution of biodiesel production plants.
Currently large amounts of sugarcane bagasse are
produced in Brazil and used as fuel in combined heat and
power generation, which has proven to be a wise initiative
both in economic and environmental terms, providing
extra revenues for the sugarcane mills and reducing the
dependence of Brazil’s energy matrix on non-renewable
resources.37 Alternatively, the almost 200 million tons of
bagasse generated per year,37 plus the straw recovered from
the field, have the potential to produce advanced biofuels
via thermochemical routes, resulting in integrated first-
and second-generation (1G2G) biochemical sugarcane
biorefineries.38
Descriptive characteristics and trends of
scientific output
During the period covered by this study, the BIOEN program
gather a total of 2992 authors from 19 different nationalities,
published in 359 distinct WoS indexed journals, with over
47 000 citations and linked to 109 distinct WoS subject
categories. Figure 4 shows the evolution of articles published
per year (TP – total publications) and citations (TCPY – total
citations per year) received by a set of articles in the BIOEN
ResearchID. In 2011, the program had its best results, with
168 publications (left axis) and 8065 citations (right axis, start
point 1000). As expected, average citations per year (ACPY)
(left axis) followed a pattern in which the number of citations
increased along the years since the article publication.
Table 1 presents a list of journals with the highest number of
publications with the BIOEN ResearchID, comprising 20% of
all articles analysed. These numbers indicate a concentration
of the articles, but there are still 198 journals with only
one publication from the BIOEN database. The journals’
h5 index details are presented to provide a measure of the
scientific relevance of the program. It is possible to confirm
that BIOEN’s articles are published in highly cited journals.
For the subcategories of biotechnology, electrochemistry,
agronomy, and crop science, in particular, BIOEN’s research
was published in the leading journals of each of these subjects
– those with the highest h5 index ratings.
Similarly, articles published through the BIOEN were
highly cited in biomass research worldwide, as described by
Chen and Ho.24 Table 2 presents the 10 most cited articles
in the sample, and it is possible to observe that, on average,
those papers received 453 citations. The performance of the
Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) stands out: it has

Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program
Figure 2. Ethanol production (in million liters).88
the authorship of four articles in the list and has received
less resources from BIOEN when compared to São Paulo’s
state universities, the University of São Paulo (USP) and
the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Six articles from
the list are related to knowledge applicable in the industrial
processing of sugarcane biomass in biorefineries, including
lignocelluloses.
Based on these quantitative measures, it is clear that BIOEN
produced relevant knowledge, published in journals with
high impact and citations. In this sense, BIOEN contributes
to the advancement of knowledge in bioenergy research in
fields that go beyond sugarcane-based ethanol. In the next
sections of the present paper, we will explore the qualitative
aspects of BIOEN research output.
Social network analysis
The first network shown depicts the co-authorship
relations among all articles with the BIOEN ResearchID,
searching for patterns of collaboration in scholarly
communities, and the formation of invisible colleges as
described by Gmür39 among others. It is assumed that
scholars work in certain communities based on their
© 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441
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Souza et al.
research interests, and this can at times be deciphered by
social network analysis.40
As the main result, it was possible to realize that BIOEN
scientific output is divided into seven communities of
co-authorships, according to the research subject. We
noticed that biotechnology, biochemistry or microbiology
were registered as the main research areas among five
communities. Based on the previous data about research
affiliation, Fig. 5 allows us to conclude that the majority of
members within the communities of co-authorship had the
same institutional affiliation. Communities III, IV, and V
have members with higher degrees of centrality, authors with
multitude of co-authors, which strengthens the connectivity.
These members are also among the most productive in
BIOEN. On the other hand, communities I, II, and VII
present no preferential attachment process, with no central
member to link all the others. These networks have low
connectivity, resulting in a slower pace of knowledge transfer
communication.
Figure 6 displays the network of countries in the BIOEN
production of knowledge, based on article co-authorship. The
size of the circles represents the number of articles attributed
195
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Souza et al. Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program

Figure 3. Biodiesel production by feedstock (in million liters).88

Figure 4. BIOEN scientific production, 2008–2019: Publications and citations. Research Data.89

to each country, and the thickness of the vertex captures and partners. As BIOEN is financed by a State organization
the number of co-authorships between countries. Notice (FAPESP) with tax money, it was expected that the resources
that Brazil has the greatest number of articles published were spent particularly within the state of São Paulo.

196 © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441
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Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program Souza et al.

Table 1. BIOEN research output 2008–2019: Journals and relevance.

Journal Articles Total share (%) h5 index (2015–2019)
PLoS One 34 3,10 175
Biotechnology for Biofuels 25 2,30 61
Bioresource Technology 23 2,10 121
Fluid Phase Equilibria 23 2,10 37
Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology 20 1,80 75
Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data 17 1,50 40
Fuel 13 1,20 96
Industrial Crops and Products 12 1,10 75
Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics 12 1,10 36
Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 10 0,90 49
Eletrochimica Acta 10 0,90 94
Note: Research data, Google Scholar Metrics (2020).

Table 2. BIOEN most cited articles 2008–2019.

Year of publication Times cited Authors institutions Journal Doi
affiliation
2010 770 Scuola Sci mat, UFSCAR Power Sources 10.1016/J.JPOWSOUR.2009.11.145
2012 772 UNICAMP Biotechnology Advances 10.1016/J.BIOTECHADV.2011.06.019
2010 425 UFPR, UFRJ, UnB, USP, Bioresource Technology 10.1016/J.BIORTECH.1009.11.067
FIOCRUZ
2010 387 UFSCAR, USP, UFG Journal of Applied 10.1107/S0021889809043076
Crystallography
2010 456 INPE Remote Sensing 10.3390/RS2041057
2012 316 CTBE, UNICAMP Bioresource Technology 10.1016/J.BIORTECH.2011.09.120
2010 404 USP, Hawaii Agr Re Plant Biotechnology 10.1111/J.1467-7652.2009.00491.X
Journal
2010 326 Embrapa/UFSCAR Cellulose 10.1007/S10570-010-9403-0
2011 385 UFSCAR, USP, UFABC Biotechnology for 10.1186/1754-6834-4-54
Biofuels
2009 291 UNICAMP Chemical Engineering 10.1016/J.CHERD.2009.06.020
Research and Design
Note: Research data, Google Scholar Metrics (2020).

Overall, Brazil is the most productive country in BIOEN,
with 1001 publications, followed by the USA with 108
publications, France (28), Germany (28), and Portugal
(20). England, Spain, and Korea occupy relevant positions
in BIOEN output network too. Although the USA presents
a great number of articles co-authored with Brazil, the
country has a reduced number of partners and most of its
research output was made with Brazilian researchers. We
highlight the position of Italy, co-authoring with countries
from a distinct cluster, such as France and Belgium. The
weak results obtained by China (10 articles) stand out, a
not so common conclusion considering the importance
of this country in scientific output worldwide. Future
efforts by BIOEN fund managers could produce incentives
for greater Chinese participation in Brazilian bioenergy
research.
In Table 3 it is possible to observe the interests of the most
active countries in the collaboration with BIOEN program.
It stands out that most of the countries that collaborated
with the program have a special interest in biotechnology
and applied microbiology. This reflects the tendency of
processes intensification through the use of better and more
adapted microorganisms, and also the focus on the greener
production of bioenergy. The table also shows Brazil’s
attention towards chemistry and engineering, which can be
seen as a concern regarding the foundations of the bioenergy

© 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441 197
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Souza et al. Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program

Figure 5. BIOEN research output evolution: Authors network. Research Data.89 I. Agriculture; science and technology –
other topics; II. Biotechnology and applied microbiology; biochemistry and molecular biology agriculture; III. Energy and
fuels engineering; chemistry; IV. Biotechnology and applied microbiology; biochemistry and molecular biology; agriculture;
V. Engineering; biotechnology and applied microbiology; agriculture; energy and fuels; VI. Biotechnology and applied
microbiology; biochemistry and molecular biology; plant sciences; VII. Chemistry; electrochemistry; material science.

Figure 6. BIOEN scientific production, 2008–2019: Countries network. Research Data.89

industry in the country, the creation of new sites and the directs our attention to the possible use of ethanol in fuel cells
incorporation of unusual feedstock, such as corn ethanol. It and an important market expansion for Brazil.
is also important to notice the interest of European countries Figure 7 shows the interactions among research subjects in
such as Italy, France, and Spain in electrochemistry, which BIOEN. In this network, each node corresponds to a subject

198 © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441
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Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program Souza et al.

Table 3. Subject category by country.

Country Subject category
Brazil Chemistry (243); engineering (219); biotechnology and applied microbiology (206); energy and fuels (142); biochemistry
and molecular biology (128)
USA Biotechnology and applied microbiology (37); energy and fuels (21); biochemistry and molecular biology (17); chemistry
(15); plant sciences (15)
France Chemistry (9); electrochemistry (7); biotechnology and applied microbiology (6); plant sciences (6); energy and fuels (4)
Germany Chemistry (13); physics (5); biotechnology and applied microbiology (4); engineering (4); thermodynamics (4)
Portugal Engineering (11); energy and fuels (9); chemistry (6); biochemistry and molecular biology (4); biophysics (3)
United Kingdom Biotechnology and applied microbiology (7); energy and fuels (5); environmental sciences and ecology (4); plant
sciences (4); chemistry (3)
Italy Electrochemistry (8); chemistry (6); engineering (6); biochemistry and molecular biology (4); energy and fuels (4)
Korea Chemistry (15); physics (8); materials science (6); science and technology – other topics (6); electrochemistry (5)
Netherlands Biotechnology and applied microbiology (8); microbiology (6); agriculture (4); environmental sciences and ecology (4);
energy and fuels (3)
Spain Chemistry (7); biochemistry and molecular biology (5); biotechnology and applied microbiology (5); electrochemistry
(3); engineering (3)
Note: Research data.

Figure 7. BIOEN scientific production, 2008–2019: Subject categories network. Research Data, WoS (2020).

based on the main Web of Science categories. The size of
the dots corresponds to the number of papers related to the
subject. The size of the vertices represents the number of
articles framed with the subject’s co-occurrence.
Figure 7 shows that BIOEN succeeded in linking many
diverse research efforts in the search for technological
progress in particular sectors. Chemistry, biotechnology and
applied microbiology, biochemistry and molecular biology,
energy and fuels, and chemical engineering are the five most
relevant subject areas in BIOEN. Furthermore, research
efforts on environmental sciences and ecology, agriculture,
food science and technology, for example, have had a relevant
role in the scientific network so far, serving as connectors
to other relevant subjects, such as chemical engineering,
physical chemistry, and energy fuels. As discussed previously,
such linkages between research areas achieved by BIOEN was
crucial for the advancement of knowledge in the Brazilian
bioenergy sector.

© 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441 199
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Souza et al. Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program

Table 4. BIOEN research output evolution: Keywords ordered by tf-idf.

Group Keywords Articles
c1g1 Marker, polyploid, saccharum, saccharum sp, architecture, bioenergy, cell wall, saccharum spp., saccharum spp, 67
sugarcane, expression, photosynthesis, molecular markers, polyploidy, lignin, energy, drought, transcription factor,
grasses, proteomics
c1g2 Glycoside hydrolase, aspergillus, cellobiohydrolase, trichoderma, structure, thermotoga petrophila, gh12, 64
endoglucanase, xyloglucanases, cellulase, enzymes, fungi, −glucosidase, x-ray crystallography, molecular dynamics,
glycoside hydrolase family 5, trichoderma reesei
c1g3 Solid–liquid equilibrium, dsc, fatty acid, ethyl esters, differential scanning calorimetry, phase diagram, liquidus line, fatty 41
alcohol, unifac, saturated fatty acids, fatty systems, uniquac, fatty compounds, xrd, ft-raman, cloud point, fatty acid
ethyl ester faee, predictive uniquac, limiting activity coefficient, eutectic
c1g4 Liquid–liquid equilibrium, deacidification, biodiesel, liquid–liquid extraction, fatty acids, adsorption, solvent extraction, 39
free fatty acids, cpa eos, solid–liquid extraction, palm oil, vegetable oil, uniquac, breakthrough curves, oleic acid, castor
oil, tocopherols, tocotrienols, ion exchange, soybean oil
c1g5 Butanol, biorefinery, sugar, simulation, life cycle assessment, integration, sugarcane, optimization, electricity, pentoses, 37
second generation, ethanol, cogeneration, biogas, economic analysis, thermal integration, alcoholchemistry, abe
fermentation, distillation, vinasse
c1g6 Toxicity, green harvest, remote sensing, methane, nitrogen fertilizer, nitrous oxide, agriculture, biomass burning, 23
agroindustrial residue, genotoxicity, vinasse, sugarcane, green ethanol protocol, pre-harvest burning, monitoring, modis,
canasat project, stratified random sampling, classification, sugarcane burning
c1g7 Sugarcane bagasse, scheffersomyces stipitis, chemical composition, scanning electron microscopy, solid-state 22
nmr, enzymatic hydrolysis, eucalyptus grandis, bark, acid pretreatment, pretreatments, thermogravimetric analysis,
bioethanol, alkali pretreatment, cellulosic ethanol, hemicellulosic hydrolysate
c1g8 Recalcitrance, lignin, cellulases, sugar cane, pretreatment, sulfite pretreatment, lignin-depleted plants, cell wall, 17
sugarcane, hydrolysis, disk refining, water retention value, microspectrophotometry, digestibility, cell wall composition,
cell wall structure, lignin removal, chlorite treatment, beta-glucosidase supplementation, acetyl xylan esterase ax
c2 Oscillations, oxidation, ethanol, ethanol oxidation, pemfc, borohydride, fuel cell, electrocatalysis, fuel cells, temperature, 70
co tolerance, catalyst, high temperature, pt-sn, electro-oxidation, catalysts, hydrogen oxidation, direct ethanol fuel cell,
borohydride electrooxidation
Note: Research data.

Group content analysis intensification is now substituted by genetic enhancement

of sugarcane properties, represented by group c1g1, where
Table 4 presents the keywords ordered by the tf-idf of
terms as expression, molecular markers, proteomics, and
BIOEN’s papers. The data are divided into nine different
transcription factor identify the interest in genomic advances.
groups, found from a direct citation network. From c1g1
The genetic enhancement proposed by group c1g1 is
group, until c1g8, the papers are connected between the
detailed in group c1g2, in which the main interest is the cell
groups, they are the component giant divided into groups
wall of plants and fungi. The plants’ cell wall is composed
by Newman algorithm.30 Group c2 is the second-biggest
basically of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, which
component. The papers of c1 are not connected, by citation,
are linked to terms such as glycoside hydrolase, cellulase,
to the papers of c2. The knowledge identification from each
cellobiohydrolase, endoglucanase, xyloglucanase, which are
group was employed by tf-idf method, to find and order each
enzymes responsible for breaking the cell wall components
keyword by its importance within its group and between
into fermentable sugars, generating a chain of second-
the groups, considering their frequencies.34,35 Based on the
generation products obtained by fermentation. The same
results presented in Table 4, it is possible to analyze research
situation can be placed on fungi wall which is also sugar-rich
efforts and scientific contributions achieved in BIOEN.
and a possible sugar source for places with no farmable land,
The Brazilian liquid biofuel energy matrix has been based
lack of sunlight, or lack of basic nutrients for plant growth.
on ethanol production since the 1970s. For this reason,
Groups c1g7 and c1g8 are also linked to efforts in second-
process intensification (unit operations optimization, and
generation ethanol and bioproducts production. Group c1g7
energy integration) were, for almost 30 years, the main subject
relates raw materials as sugarcane bagasse, eucalyptus, bark,
of research. However, the result in Table 4 shows a different
lignocellulosic materials, and residual materials to methods
perspective on Brazil’s bioenergy scientific activities. Process
of composition determination, represented by chemical

200 © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441

Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program
composition, thermogravimetric analysis, and scanning
electron microscopy, and finally to pretreatments as in alkali
pretreatment, acid pretreatment, pretreatments. In turn,
group c1g8 puts together the subject’s cell-wall composition
and digestibility and pretreatments, serving as a link between
organism enhancement and process design.
The biorefinery concept appears in group c1g5, which also
takes up the concept of process intensification, but in another
context than cited before. Biorefinery integrates different
processes with first-generation biofuels production, in which
terms such as biorefinery and alcohol chemistry represent
the interest in this integration. The processes that can be
integrated into a biorefinery are pointed by the terms second
generation, cogeneration, electricity, biogas, ABE fermentation,
and butanol. Process intensification shows up in a biorefinery
context, integrating different types of technologies targeting
cost reduction or the production of valuable products. Terms
such as life cycle assessment, economic analysis, optimization,
and thermal integration make it possible to deduce that
another scientific gap filled by BIOEN is the assembling work
and evaluation of different scenarios centered on different
market demands establishing a relation between energy and
the production of secondary products.
Pre- and post-processing of sugarcane ethanol are present
in group c1g6. Harvest is one of the critical points of
sustainable ethanol production, and pre-harvest burning was
common in Brazil, which increases the final product’s carbon
footprint. Terms such as green harvest and green ethanol
protocol can be related to a paradigm change over pre-
harvest burning, sugarcane burning, and biomass burning,
which can also be related to energy generation together
with methane. Regarding sugarcane farming, terms such as
nitrogen fertilizer, nitrous oxide, and genotoxicity appear
as main chemical/biological concerns and remote sensing,
monitoring, Canasat project, stratified random sampling,
and classification appear as methods for assessing harvesting
improvement. Considering the post-processing stage of
the bioethanol production process, one can see vinasse and
toxicity terms as the main concerns in this group.
Biodiesel production is represented in groups c1g3 and
c1g4. Due to the variety of vegetable oils and possible
routes (methanolic and ethanolic) considered for biodiesel
production, most of the highlighted terms are related
to thermodynamic data, which are essential for the
development of unit operations and reliable simulations.
Terms related to phase equilibrium (solid–liquid
equilibrium, limiting activity coefficient, eutectic, phase
diagram, liquid–liquid equilibrium) and the related unit
operations (solvent extraction, liquid–liquid extraction,
solid–liquid extraction, deacidification) appear together
© 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441
19321031, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bbb.2441 by Universidade Federal De Mato Grosso, Wiley Online Library on [15/12/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Souza et al.
with group contribution methods as predictive UNIQUAC
(Universal Quasichemical), and used as complements
for thermodynamic data (UNIQUAC - Universal
Quasichemical, CPA - Cubic-Plus-Association, and EoS -
Equations of State). All these data are related to the biodiesel
production process components, considering raw materials
as saturated fatty acids, fatty acid, oleic acid, vegetable
oil, palm oil, castor oil, soybean oil, and products as fatty
acid ethyl ester. One highlight can be made related to
tocotrienols, which are high value-added products, currently
not well explored by the local economy.
Considering all the results, the most surprising one is the
c2 group with 70 publications. This group shows the fuel
cells as one of the main successes of Brazilian energy policy
and a possible exportable technology considering the use of
ethanol as a hydrogen carrier. It can seem like a ‘surprising
factor’ due to the abundance of liquid fuels in Brazil and the
availability of flex cars all around the country; for this reason,
it can be considered as a step in the direction of controlling
an important and international market share. There are other
groups with small numbers of interconnected academic
papers, such as papers investigating soil microbial activities
under agriculture activities (Lucas W.41; Lucas W.42).
However, these were not considered due to space limitations.
The results discussed above are demonstrated by the list
of the most representative publications presented in Table 5.
Table 5. Papers by group.
Group Papers
c1g1 Waclawovsky et al.43; Yilmaz et al.44; de Souza et
al.45; Papini-Terzi et al.46,47;
c1g2 Fischer et al.48; de Souza et al.49; Farinas et al.50;
Santos et al.51; Cota et al.52
c1g3 Costa et al.53; Ceriani et al.54; Costa et al.55;
Costa et al.56; Carareto et al.57
c1g4 Santana et al.58; Oliveira et al.59; Follegatti-
Romero et al.60; Follegatti-Romero et al.61; Silva
et al.62
c1g5 Dias et al.63; Dias et al.64; Chandel et al.65; Dias et
al.66; Cavalett et al.67
c1g6 Christofoletti et al.68; Adami et al.69; Galdos et
al.70; Aguiar et al.71; do Carmo et al.72
c1g7 Rezende et al.73; Maeda et al.74; Lima et al.75;
Cunha et al.76; Cadete et al.77
c1g8 Masarin et al.77; de Souza et al.78; Siqueira et
al.79; Siqueira et al.80; Mendes et al.81
c2 Antolini and Gonzalez82; Antolini and Gonzalez83;
Gomes and Tremiliosi-Filho84; Lima et al.85;
Concha et al.86
Note: Research data.
201

Souza et al.
The publications are divided according to the same groups
observed before, and as can be seen from these data, the
terms mentioned above are strongly related to the subject
of each representative publication. This grouping process
was not produced by arbitrary human decisions – on
the contrary it was the result of the application of a data-
analysis-based algorithm, which can be applied to a great
range of subjects.
The methodological possibility of grouping research
subjects and pointing to market trends, by countries, regions
and organizations, opens a new path for more assertive
decision-making.
Possible policies and paths
There are numerous directions that could be taken based
on the results presented previously in this text. However, to
make the way easier four policy makers and funding agencies
we have identified some major deductions that can be made
from this data:
•• Analyzing the international situation and the results
obtained by the BIOEN program, for developing
countries such as Brazil, there is an interest in investing in
research into cleaner and more efficient ways to produce
energy. This can be seen as providing a competitive edge
in the near future and as a response to consumer choices.
Moreover, energy is important for economic growth and
social welfare, and renewable sources can be seen as the
future of energy production.
•• To avoid energy shortfalls and scarcity of some kinds
of fuels due to climate change and geopolitical issues,
the diversification of a country’s energy matrix can be
seen as one of the main goals of the next decade. The
data show that the heterogeneity of Brazilian bioenergy
sources is capable of sustaining a major part of this
diversification. Although, oriented investments and
public policies as fomenting public funding agencies
still essential for the diversification of bioenergy
research.
•• Public funding agencies are essential players in the
energy research scenario. The resources centralization
and its distribution based on research themes, which are
defined by public policies, can only be made by these
institutions.
•• Research programs like BIOEN can create important
research clusters and collaboration networks. It is possible
to focus research efforts under one main theme to solve
social problems of great complexity.
•• International and inter-university collaboration is
essential for knowledge interchange and to increase the
research impact on science and society.
202 © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441
19321031, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bbb.2441 by Universidade Federal De Mato Grosso, Wiley Online Library on [15/12/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program
Conclusion
The results in this article give a different perspective on
Brazil’s bioenergy scientific activities. As discussed, the
country has apparently reached a stagnation plateau with
regard to first-generation sugarcane ethanol processing,
creating a need for sound investments in the development
of new processes that complement the ethanol production
process in many ways. In this regard, the BIOEN research
program has successfully incentivized the production of
knowledge in emerging scientific areas and subjects. The
BIOEN program has also been concerned with the life
cycle of biofuel, and has financed research in all stages,
from cultivation to final usage, in the search for cleaner and
more efficient technologies. As a result of efforts made by
governmental programs such as BIOEN, ethanol processing
and, in general, bioenergy generation in Brazil, is slowly
been enhanced over time. However, at a smaller velocity
than other discoveries, as genetic engineering and selection
of organisms. As indicated, BIOEN produced relevant
research results, with frequently cited articles. But, on the
other hand, technological progress in the Brazilian bioenergy
sector is still moderate, with just a few industries investing
in second generation ethanol and other biofuels. This time
lapse between research results and application involves other
elements than scientific work, such as public funding and
project upscaling, and these constitute some of the main
bottlenecks of the program. Overall BIOEN filled important
scientific gaps and brought relevant cooperation for the
improvement of crops, industrial facilities, and the future
economic efficiency of the Brazilian bioenergy sector.
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Roney Fraga Souza
In 2016, Professor Souza received
his PhD in economic development
from the University of Campinas
(UNICAMP). He is currently a
professor of economics at the Federal
University of Mato Grosso. Technology
forecasting and scientific mapping are
two of his research interests.
Júlio Cesar de Carvalho Miranda
Prof Júlio Cesar de Carvalho Miranda
teaches at the Federal University
of Mato Grosso. He received his
doctorate in process and product
development from the State University
of Campinas in 2015, after studying
at the Brandenburgische Technische
Universität Cottbus in Germany. His research interests
include process design and simulation, with a focus on
biofuels.
205

Souza et al.
Jaim José da Silva Júnior
Prof Jaim José da Silva Júnior,
is a professor of agribusiness
management at the University of
Brasilia. Since 2017, he has held a
PhD in economic theory from the
State University of Campinas. His
current research interests are in
rural and agricultural development, with a focus on
agricultural inputs, market research, and innovation.
206 © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 17:191–206 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2441
19321031, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bbb.2441 by Universidade Federal De Mato Grosso, Wiley Online Library on [15/12/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Original Article: A bibliometric evaluation of the BIOEN research program
José Maria da Silveira
Prof José Maria da Silveira is an
agronomist with an MS degree and
a PhD in economics. He is currently
a full professor at the Institute of
Economics, UNICAMP, and deputy
director of the Interdisciplinary
Energy Research Center, UNICAMP.
He has been a member of the Board of International
Consortium of Applied Bioeconomy Research (ICABR)
since 2012 and member of the Board Management
of International Schumpeterian Society (ISS). He has
been publishing articles in the areas of scientometrics,
industrial organization, and the economics of innovation,
using methodologies based on network analysis and
simulation modeling (ABM), with almost 100 papers
published.