Bioethanol environmental advantages

Bioethanol can be regarded as a potential renewable feedstock and is produced as 3-15 vol.% aqueous solution by fermentation. Therefore, the dired transformation of dilute bioethanol to valuable compounds with air can be an environmentally friendly process. Gold catalysts appear to be advantageous in this process over Pd and Pt catalysts. The latter showed inferior seledivity to acetic acid of 60% and 16% for Pd and Pt, respedively, under the same conditions [167]. Furthermore, C02, which can be easily removed from the produd solution, was formed as the major by-produd over Au catalysts, whereas acetaldehyde was also co-produced over Pd and Pt catalysts. 

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