Cellulosic Ethanol Blog

Bergius Process, a Cheap Process to Make Ethanol

2009-06-30T00:59:00.000-07:00

A startup based in Tel Aviv, Israel, called HCL-Cleantech has reinvented a century-old process called the Bergius process as a much cheaper method to produce ethanol from biomass. The process uses concentrated hydrochloric acid (HCL) to breakdown biomass into sugars but has been too expensive for commercial use. The company, however, says that it has developed a way to recycle 42 percent of the HCL, pumping it back into the system and significantly reducing the cost of making ethanol. Read more here

Ethanol are more Efficient and Generate Less Greenhouse-gas Emissions

2009-03-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

Ethanol made in plants that also generate power from waste biomass are more efficient and generate less greenhouse-gas emissions than making petroleum-based gasoline, a new study says. Mark it as another salvo in the ongoing debate over the biofuel's environmental benefits. Read

Production of Cellulosic Ethanol is on the Rise in Iowa

2009-03-31T21:32:00.000-07:00

The production of cellulosic ethanol is on the rise in Iowa, New York and South Dakota according to the Department of Energy.

The DOE says that while 2009 is starting out as a difficult year for the ethanol fuel industry, so far it's been a landmark year for cellulosic ethanol.

Produced from non-food plants and agricultural residues, cellulosic ethanol is expected to yield significant benefits in terms of energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions. So far this year, Poet and Mascoma Corporation have started up pilot plants in South Dakota and New York, while Poet is already planning ahead for its construction of a commercial facility in Iowa. Read more from this

The Economic Downturn that has Slowed the Ethanol Industry

2009-03-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

Making ethanol from plant cellulose - such as crop residue and wood chips - could help reduce the nation's use of gasoline.

Refiners are required by law next year to start using at least 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol. But industry officials acknowledge they will not come close to providing enough of the fuel to meet that target or the targets for subsequent years.

Companies that are trying to commercialize cellulosic ethanol are struggling to find investors and lenders. Read this

Cellulosic Ethanol Provides 54 Percent more Energy than Corn-based Ethanol

2009-03-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

The ethanol industry is taking a beating from the bad economy, with big producers like VeraSun shuttering factories and filing for bankruptcy. Those left standing are pleading with the feds to increase the amount of ethanol that can be blended with gasoline, arguing it will boost demand, produce thousands of jobs and hasten the arrival of viable cellulosic ethanol. Read more

Honda Hits the Gas on Cellulosic Ethanol R&D

2009-03-24T00:35:00.000-07:00

Honda Motor Co. has been toiling away at ethanol research since before hybrids moved in from the fringe of autoshows and well before deriving the stuff from corn ignited a heated debate over food vs. fuel. The company said it will build a large-scale plant to test the viability of its cellulosic ethanol production technology in “practical applications” — something it’s had in the works for more than two years. Read.

Cellulosic Ethanol from Wood Chips

2009-02-25T20:51:00.000-08:00

The Boston-based startup is making test quantities of cellulosic ethanol from wood chips at a plant in Rome, N.Y. It hopes to raise money for a $200 million, 40 million gallon-per-year commercial scale plant in Michigan. Read more

Commercial-size Plant to Make Ethanol from Cellulose

2009-01-31T22:03:00.000-08:00

The Agriculture Department is close to issuing its first loan guarantee for a commercial-size plant to make ethanol from cellulose. The 2008 farm law created a $320 million dollar loan guarantee program for biorefineries that would produce advanced fuels such as ethanol from cellulose, found in grass and wood. Read

A New Process to Cut Cost of Cellulosic Ethanol

2009-01-31T21:59:00.000-08:00

Researchers at Michigan State University have patented a process for pretreating corn crop waste that they say will cut the cost of making cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels. Read

Cellulosic Ethanol Benefits

2009-01-05T03:56:00.000-08:00

Cellulosic ethanol offers many benefits. For one thing, it has a higher net energy yield than corn-based ethanol. Furthermore, because it can be produced with crops other than corn, it's not as vulnerable to the price of that commodity (which has doubled in the past few years). As an additional benefit, many of the crops used in producing cellulosic ethanol are perennial crops; they that don't need to be replanted every year, and they tend to use fewer fertilizers and pesticides than corn. Read

What is Cellulosomes?

2009-01-05T03:53:00.000-08:00

Cellulosomes are large extracellular enzyme complexs that are produced by anaerobic bacteria and can efficiently break down plant cell wall polysaccharides, such as cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin into sugars. Read

Development of Next-Generation Cellulosic Ethanol

2009-01-05T03:50:00.000-08:00

Next-generation cellulosic ethanol uses advanced enzyme science to reduce the cost of ethanol production and enable the use of a wide variety of biomass. Unlike traditional ethanol manufactured using natural gas or coal, cellulosic ethanol from biomass can be broken
down into fermentable sugars using acid or enzymatic hydrolysis. Read

More Cellulosic Ethanol from Corn, and Let Cows Eat Grass

2009-01-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting post on cellulosic ethanol. Admittedly, it is slightly old (Jul 2007), but it is an interesting post.

The post essentially argues that instead of trying to get cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass, it might be better to make the cattle eat these grasses instead of the corn they are fed today while the corn stover is used to make cellulosic ethanol.

A detailed post, and it will be interesting to check out if what is being said in that blog is happening today

Converting Switchgrass to Ethanol

2008-12-30T01:17:00.000-08:00

Status of Cellulose to Ethanol

2008-12-30T00:52:00.000-08:00

This site provides opportunities,market issues, Financial issues of Ethanol. Read here

Converting Plant Sugar to Cellulosic Ethanol

2008-12-30T00:40:00.001-08:00

The sugar in cellulosic biomass is locked up in the form of cellulose and hemicellulose. Cellulose contains glucose, the same type of sugar - six-carbon (C6) sugar - that is found in cornstarch and that can be fermented to ethanol using conventional yeasts. However, hemicellulose contains mainly non-glucose sugars-five-carbon (C5) sugars. Conventional yeasts cannot ferment most non-glucose sugars to ethanol with commercially acceptable yields. Read

Current State of Cellulosic Ethanol Production

2008-12-30T00:37:00.000-08:00

Only a small part of most plants is sugar or starch, the part that can be digested by humans and fermented by yeast into ethanol. Most of the rest is cellulose. Naturally, using the bulk of the plant is more efficient. Better yet, we need not use our food plants. Some grasses store more energy in cellulose than does corn, and require far less nitrogen fertilizer, far fewer pesticides, and less process heat (energy).
The main drawback now is expense. Of course cellulose ethanol could be overdone like anything else, but much more could be produced with much less ecological damage. And with some plausible advances, it could be cheaper than gasoline. Read the current production cost

Cellulosic Ethanol - the Current Situation

2008-12-30T00:27:00.000-08:00

Cellulosicethanol –the current situation
•The process
•The costs
•Enzyme improvements
•What is needed next
Read Here

To Make Alcohol From Sawdust

2008-12-30T00:24:00.000-08:00

There are two typesof alcohol you can obtain from wood -- methanol and ethanol. Methanolcan be obtained from wood by high temperature destructivedistillation. Methanol is also known as wood alcohol. The othermethod used to obtain ethanol involves converting the sawdust tosimple sugars, the usual fermenting by yeast, and the usualdistillation of the fermented solution. There are a couple of othersteps involved prior to distillation that are distinct from thestandard processes almost everyone is familiar with. Read

Distillation of ethanol

2008-12-30T00:19:00.000-08:00

Ethanol Distillation is the chemical process of creating ethanol fuel from various components including corn or cornmeal, sugar (sucrose), water and yeast. Corn Ethanol - Most commonly whole grain corn is used and converted from cornstarch into sugar by sprouting the corn, fermenting a mixture of cornmeal which in the end is transformed into carbonic acid and alcohol which is commonly referred to as a 'wash'. Read

Ethanol and Bio-diesel: Fuels or Threats to Food Security?

2008-12-29T23:19:00.000-08:00

The United Sates produced 3.9 billion gallons of ethanol in 2006 and expanded its output to 6.5 billion in 2007. This took millions of hectares of land out of food production. In 2007, 54 percent of the world's corn was grown in the USA, and 38 percent of US corn crop ended up in gas tanks instead of stomachs. The amount of corn required to produce a gallon ethanol is enough to feed a human being for two weeks. Corn is mainly used to feed chickens and cattle, so the price of poultry, eggs, beef, and dairy products will continue to rise. Read

Costs Of Fuel Ethanol Plants World

2008-12-29T23:13:00.000-08:00

Other countries are either producing and using ethanol in large quantities or are providing incentives to expand ethanol production and use. Brazil and Sweden are using large quantities of ethanol as a fuel. Some Canadian provinces promote ethanol use as a fuel by offering subsidies of up to 45 cents per gallon of ethanol. Read

Real Cost Of Corn Ethanol

2008-12-29T23:04:00.000-08:00

Corn is the most widely produced feed grain in the United States, accounting for more than 90 percent of total feed grain production. Around 80 million acres of land are planted to corn, with the majority of the crop grown in the Heartland region. Although most of the crop is used to feed livestock, corn is also processed into food and industrial products including starch, sweeteners, corn oil, beverage and industrial alcohol, and fuel ethanol. The United States is a major player in the world corn market. Approximately 20 percent of its corn crop is currently exported to other countries. Read

Cellulase Production

2008-12-29T22:50:00.000-08:00

Successful utilization of cellulosic materials as renewable carbon sources is dependent on the development of economically feasible process technologies for cellulase production, and for the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulosic materials to low molecular weight products such as hexoses and pentoses. Read

Biocatalysts for Cellulosic Ethanol

2008-12-29T22:45:00.000-08:00