New Technology To Produce Ethanol From Cellulosic Biomass
Date: 1.10.2006
Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) and Honda R&D Co., Ltd. announced that their cooperative research has resulted in ethanol production technology from soft-biomass, a renewable resource of plant-derived material.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) released by the combustion of bio-ethanol is balanced by the CO2 captured by plants through photosynthesis and, thus, does not increase the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Bio-ethanol, therefore, has attracted attention as a carbon-neutral fuel, an energy source effective as countermeasure to global-warming.
Existing bio-ethanol production, however, faces supply limits, as it is produced primarily from sugar and starch of sugarcane and corn feedstock, which are also utilized as food.
In its collaborative research, RITE and Honda have established the basic technology to produce ethanol fuel from cellulose and hemicellulose, both found in soft-biomass*, including inedible leaves and stalks of plants, such as rice straw. Until now, such soft-biomass represented a challenge to convert to ethanol. Thus, the new process represents a large step forward for practical application of soft-biomass as a fuel source.
The RITE-Honda process, newly developed as an integration of the sophisticated bio-technology of RITE and the engineering technology of Honda, paves the way to bio-ethanol production from cellulose and hemi-cellulose, with the potential to significantly increase fuel production.
"Source":[ http://www.technologynewsdaily.com/node/4464]
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