Ethanol, fermentation sugarcane feedstock

Recent studies have proven ethanol to be an ideal liquid fuel for transportation and renewable lignocellulosic biomass to be an attractive feedstock for ethanol fuel production by fermentation (1,2). The major fermentable sugars from hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass, such as rice and wheat straw, sugarcane bagasse, corn stover, corn fiber, softwood, hardwood, and grasses, are D-glucose and D-xylose except that softwood... 

More than twenty years ago, it was recognized that cellulosic biomass, including agricultural residues (such as corn stover, rice and wheat straws, and sugarcane bagasse), municipal wastes (such as yard and paper wastes), and industrial wastes (such as wastes from paper mills), is an attractive feedstock for ethanol-fuel production by fermentation because cellulosic biomass is not only renewable and available domestically in most countries but also available at very low cost and in great abundance. 

Fermenting grains with yeast produces a grain alcohol. The process also works with other biomass feedstocks. In fermentation, the yeast decomposes carbohydrates which are starches in grains, or sugar from sugarcane juice into ethyl alcohol (ethanol) and carbon dioxide. The process breaks down complex substances into simpler ones. 

The C4-Platform is accessible by fermentation using corn or sugarcane bagasse as feedstock by acetone-butanol or acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation using Clostridium acetobutylicum or Clostridium beijerinckii under anaerobic conditions. This process has been industry standard since decades and produces the three solvents in a ratio ABE = 3 6 1. More recently, microbial fermentation technologies which genetically... 

Biobutanol can be used as fuel in internal combustion engines. It is usually produced from the fermentation of biomass, and because of its chemical properties, it is actually more similar to petrol than ethanol is. It can be produced from the same feedstocks used for ethanol production, such as corn, sugarcane, potatoes, and wheat. Despite its possible applications, however, this type of biofuel has not heen produced commercially. 

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