Present Situation and Prospect on the Industrial Development of Cellulosic Fuel Ethanol

Fuel ethanol is a kind of clean and renewable energy. It has been considered as an alternative to oil or was blended with oil to reduce the CO2 emission. To develop fuel ethanol industry can alleviate the crisis on excessive consumption of fossil fuels,sustain the energy security,and achieve the sustainable development. The current industrial development of fuel ethanol in the USA,Brazil,European Union and China was summarized according to the productive capacity,the raw materials,and so on.The industrial development of cellulosic ethanol was mainly stated in this paper. The thermo-chemical and biochemical technologies applied in the conversion of cellulose to ethanol were described,and the bottlenecks of these two technologies were pointed out. Several ways were suggested to push the development of cellulosic ethanol industry,such as improvement of industrial technology,complementation of advanced technology,production of high value-added by-products,integration of manufacturing and marketing,and so on. Finally,it made an outlook for the future of cellulosic ethanol industry.