Ethanol A Model Biorenewable Fuel

Cereal crops (com) sugar crops (fruit) honey 

While corn yield per acre has a steadily increasing trajectory, there is a long-term interest in the use of hgnocellulosic biomass for the production of fuel ethanol. Acid-mediated depolymerization of saw dust (and other materials) into sugar was noted in 1819 by Braconnot [15, 16]. This acid-mediated hydrolysis and subsequent fermentation came to be known as the Classen process [17, 18], and by 1910 there were reports of economically successful production of ethanol from wood waste [19, 20]. But interest in these processes waned and they were largely forgotten, as evidenced by the fact that the 2013 opening of a facility 

Just as interest in ethanol has driven the development of chemical models, distillation technology, and the field of metabolic engineering, it has also driven the development of the field of biomass deconstruction. Given that the focus of this book series is on biotechnology, this chapter will place more emphasis on the metabolic engineering aspect. However, key examples are briefly discussed in Section 18.3. 

Metabolic Engineering Design, Build,Test, Learn 

Some organisms, such as Zymomonas mohilis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, are naturally able to produce ethanol as their major fermentation product. However, these two ethanologenic organisms are not naturally capable of using the pentose 

---