Alcohol from biomass, government

Methanol and ethanol are alcohol fuels that can be produced from various renewable sources. Alcohol fuels are converted from biomass or other feedstocks using one or several conversion techniques. Both government and private research programs are finding more effective, less costly methods of converting biomass to alcohol fuels. Methanol was originally a by-product of charcoal production, but today it is primarily produced from natural gas and can also be made from biomass and coal. 

The use of renewable feedstocks (i.e., biomass) in the production of fuels and value-added chemicals has attracted major interest from researchers and governments because of the anticipated shortages of traditional petrochemical industrial feedstocks [199]. An excellent overview of the milestones relating to the use of bioderived alcohols in the synthesis of higher value chemicals was recently presented by Hutchings et al. [200]. In this area as well, particle size effects can be identified yet care must be taken, as illustrated by a recent paper by Simakova et al. [201], which showed a bimodal Au particle size effect in the catalytic activity of Au-TiOj system in the gas-phase oxidation of ethanol. 

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