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      Alcohol Fuels – Ethanol

Ethanol is the predominant fuel produced form crops that, because of favorable properties, has been used as fuel in the United States since at least 1908, along with methanol and gasoline (Table A-10).

Table A-10 Selected physical and chemical properties of methanol, ethanol, and gasoline.

      Although early efforts to sustain an ethanol program failed, oil supply disruptions in the Middle East and environmental concerns over the use of lead as a gasoline octane booster renewed interest in ethanol in the late 1970s. At present, extending the volume of conventional gasoline is a significant end use for ethanol, as is its use as an oxygenate. To succeed in these markets, the cost of ethanol must be close to the wholesale price of gasoline, currently made possible by the federal ethanol subsidy. However, in order for ethanol to compete on its own merit,s the cost of producing it must be reduced substantially.

      The production of ethanol from corn is a mature technology that holds much potential. Substantial cost reductions may be possible, however, if cellulose-based feedstocks are used instead of corn. Producers are experimenting with units equipped to convert cellulose-based feedstocks, using sulfuric acid to break down cellulose and hemicellulose into fermentable sugar. Although the process is expensive at present, advances in biotechnology could decrease conversion costs substantially. The feed for all ethanol fermentations is sugar - traditionally a hexose (a six-carbon or “C6” sugar) such as those present naturally in sugar cane, sugar beet, and molasses. Sugar for fermentation can also be recovered from starch, which is actually a polymer of hexose sugars (polysaccharide).

Biomass, in the form of wood and agricultural residues such as wheat straw, is viewed as a low cost alternative feed to sugar and starch. It is also potentially available in far greater quantities than sugar and starch feeds. As such, it receives significant attention as a feed material for ethanol production. Like starch, wood and agricultural residues contain polysaccharides. However, unlike starch, while the cellulose fraction of biomass is principally a polymer of easily fermented hexose (C6) sugars, the hemicellulose fraction is principally a polymer of pentose (C5) sugars; with quite different characteristics for recovery and fermentation, the cellulose and hemicellulose in biomass are bound together in a complex framework of crystalline organic material known as lignin.

      These differences mean that recovery of these biomass sugars is more complex than recovery of sugars from a starch feedstock. Once recovered, fermentation is also more complex than a simple fermentation of hexose sugars. The current focus focuses on the issues of releasing the sugars (hydrolysis) and then fermenting as much of the C6 and C5 sugars as possible to produce ethanol.

      There are several different methods of hydrolysis: (i) concentrated sulfuric acid, (ii) dilute sulfuric acid, (iii) nitric acid, and (iv) acid pretreatment followed by enzymatic hydrolysis.

      Ethanol is produced from the fermentation of sugar by enzymes produced from specific varieties of yeast. The five major sugars are the five-carbon xylose and arabinose and the six-carbon glucose, galactose, and mannose. Traditional fermentation processes rely on yeasts that convert six-carbon sugars to ethanol. Glucose, the preferred form of sugar for fermentation, is contained in both carbohydrates and cellulose. Because carbohydrates are easier than cellulose to convert to glucose, the majority of ethanol currently produced in the United States is made from corn, which produces large quantities of carbohydrates. Also, the organisms and enzymes for carbohydrate conversion and glucose fermentation on a commercial scale are readily available.

      The conversion of cellulosic biomass to ethanol parallels the corn conversion process. The cellulose

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