Ethanol from Cellulosic Biomass Resources

Cellulosic materials can be used to produce ethanol. Ethanol represents an important, renewable liquid fuel for motor vehicles. Production of ethanol from biomass is one way to reduce both the consumption of crude oil and environmental pollution. Conversion technologies for producing ethanol from cellulosic biomass resources such as forest materials, agricultural residues and urban wastes are under development and have not yet been demonstrated commercially. In order to produce ethanol from cellulosic biomass, a pretreatment process is used to reduce the sample size, break down the hemicelluloses to sugars, and open up the structure of the cellulose component. The cellulose portion is hydrolyzed by acids or enzymes into glucose sugar that is fermented to ethanol. The sugars from the hemicelluloses are also fermented to ethanol.