Progress in bioethanol processing

Production of ethanol (bioethanol) from biomass is one way to reduce both consumption of crude oil and environmental pollution. Bioethanol is appropriate for the mixed fuel in the gasoline engine because of its high octane number, and its low cetane number and high heat of vaporization impede self-ignition in the diesel engine. So, ignition improver, glow-plug, surface ignition, and pilot injection are applied to promote self-ignition by using diesel-bioethanol-blended fuel. Disadvantages of bioethanol include its lower energy density than gasoline, its corrosiveness, low flame luminosity, lower vapor pressure (making cold starts difficult), miscibility with water, and toxicity to ecosystems. Bioethanol can be produced from cellulosic feedstocks. One major problem with bioethanol production is the availability of raw materials for the production. The availability of feedstocks for bioethanol can vary considerably from season to season and depends on geographic locations. Lignocellulosic biomass is the most promising feedstock considering its great availability and low cost, but the large-scale commercial production of fuel bioethanol from lignocellulosic materials has still not been implemented. Conversion technologies for producing bioethanol from cellulosic biomass resources such as forest materials, agricultural residues and urban wastes are under development and have not yet been demonstrated commercially. For designing fuel bioethanol production processes, assessment of utilization of different feedstocks (i.e. sucrose containing, starchy materials, lignocellulosic biomass) is required considering the big share of raw materials in bioethanol costs. In this work a review of the biological and thermochemical methods that could be used to produce bioethanol is made and an analysis of its global production trends is carried out.