Maize biorefineries

Whole crop biorefinery A whole crop biorefinery will employ cereals (e.g. wheat, maize, rape, etc) and convert the entire plant (straw and grain) into energy, chemicals and materials (see Figure 1.7). 

Starch crop biorefineries based on cereals, maize, potato, etc. 

This biorefinery processes starch crops (see Figure 17.2), such as wheat, maize and potatoes, or sugar crops (see Figure 17.3), such as sugar beet or sugar cane. Its most important output is glucose, which can be further used for the production of ethanol and organic acids. 

The principles of milling described have been recently adopted by fuel ethanol processors. Maize is fractionated into coproducts and refined endosperm pieces that are further milled into a meal adequate for ethanol processing. The advantage of using fractionated milling is that the coproducts have added value because they are more stable compared to wet-distilled grains and have higher ethanol yields from the refined endosperm fractions used in the biorefineries (Chapter 14). 

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