Cellulosic Ethanol Industry Recognizes Another Potential Feedstock..

There are loads and loads of feedstock containing cellulose as a biomass to derive ethanol fuel. Recent studies show that alfalfa can be used as a cellulosic biomass. Alfaalfa, commonly known as the Lucerne grass is by far the most popular legume and research studies have revealed that it can serve as one of the best feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production.

I actually listened to Dave Miller, a biotech researcher interview about the potential os cellulosic ethanol and here is an outline of what he said: He feels that this crop has great potential than other cellulosic biomass due to the fact that it is environmentally very friendly. Moreover, it is a very good crop for crop-rotation and most importantly, it fixes nitrogen and prevents soil erosion as well.

However, efforts are on the way to “redesign” the crop to reduce the lignin content. The problem the cellulosic ethanol industry is facing is the high-lignin which poses the problem of pre-processing. That s the reason why Dave Miller and his team are planning to genetically modify the alfalfa and redesign the crop it for easy biomass digestion.

Preliminary efforts by Dave Millers group revealed that alfalfa has greater potential as a cellulosic biomass feedstock, when compared to other cellulosic biomass. In addition, Miller says preliminary work shows alfalfa is competitive with other feedstock for its ability to convert to cellulosic ethanol and that a corn/alfalfa rotation creates a very favorable carbon footprint for ethanol production.

Why alfalfa?

1. Great potential as a cellulosic biomass.
2. Can be used as a rotation crop.
3. Prevents soil erosion
4. It being a legume fixes nitrogen to the soil.
5. Preliminary tests show that alfalfa is better than many other cellulosic biomasses.

For the large-scale production of cellulosic ethanol, many feedstocks which are cellulosic in nature can be considered as a feedstock and identification of crops such as alfalfa is indeed a major breakthrough in the development of the cellulosic ethanol industry.

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