Ethanol, fermentation wheat feedstock

Starch-containing plants Another potential ethanol feedstock is starch. Starch molecules are made up of long chains of glucose molecules. Hence, starch-containing materials can also be fermented after the starch molecules have been broken down into simple glucose molecules. Examples of starchy materials commonly used around the world for ethanol production include cereal grains, potatoes, sweet potatoes and cassava. Typical cereal grains commonly used for ethanol production in the EET are rye and wheat. 

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. 

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. 

The fermentation of biomass to ethanol and its subsequent use as a fuel has been investigated in numerous projects (e.g. Concawe/EUCAR 2007 and the BrewProject) [32, 33]. Different biomass feedstocks, e.g. wheat, sugar beet, wood and sfraw, have been taken into account in these studies. However, when comparing separate studies of the same raw material results vary between studies. Some possible reasons are variation in geographical scope, different alcohol contents (anhydrous or hydrous, if stated at all) under different methodological choices such as allocation and how the alternative use of the material for other purposes has been dealt with. 

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