Why is Cellulosic Ethanol Best as a Biofuel ?

Furious research has been going on in the efforts to commercialize Cellulosic ethanol and make it more cheaper.

As discussed earlier, cellulosic ethanol can be produced from a wide variety of cellulosic substances such as agricultural plant wastes like corn stover, cereal straws, and sugarcane bagasse. or cellulosic feedstock or plant wastes from industrial processes like sawdust, paper pulp as well as switchgrass.

Wastes like sawdust and paper pulp are especially useful, because they are already processed to a degree and eliminate a step from the cellulosic ethanol production process, saving cost.

Why do I think Cellulosic Ethanol is the best ?

a. Cellulosic ethanol production prevents the danger that food cropping will turn into more lucrative fuel-cropping.

b. Supply of raw material is also more abundant than corn-based ethanol production.

c. Use of fertilizers and watering essential for corn for ethanol production is also not required to such an extent for cellulosic ethanol.

d. The best thing I love about CE is that the fact that traditional ethanol cellulosic ethanol uses only lignin, which has energy content equal to coal, it doesn’t use fossil fuels during manufacture Lignin is a bi-product of the conversion process from bio-mass to ethanol, and does not need to be procured extra. Thus, no expensive fossil fuel is required for the cellulosic manufacturing process,

e. Most importantly, the amount of harmful CO2 produced while using the lignin is totally compensated by the absorption from the original plants in photosynthesis.

f. The usage of the perennial switch grass for cellulosic ethanol also bodes well for the environment and efficiency. This grass has a deep root system which helps prevents soil erosion and contributes toward soil fertility.

Problems with Cellulosic Ethanol:

The only disadvantage of cellulosic ethanol lies in the difficulty with which it is presently extracted from the feedstock. The cellulosic feedstock in process consists mainly of cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin, and the idea is to extract fermentable sugars in order to synthesize into ethanol. But these sugars in cellulose and hemicellulose are bound in complex carbohydrates called polysaccharides, and separating these complex structures into simple sugars is not easy.

This leads to

a. Longer process time.

b. Low yield per unit of feedstock, making cellulosic ethanol somewhat less economical.

c. Common problems faced by both cellulosic ethanol and conventional ethanol is as follows:
Cellulosic ethanol and conventional ethanol have some challenges in common:

Development and availability of fuel-efficient cars using ethanol and an efficient infrastructure of raw material collection, processing and delivery. But in the long term given adequate research into developing efficiency and infrastructure, cellulosic ethanol appears to have the better potential for economy, environment-friendliness and waste management.

Therefore, what is required here is to increase the efficiency and quantity of production. Among all countries, Brazil has the most extensive domestic cellulosic ethanol industry based on sugarcane, and almost all its cars can run on ethanol.

Countries like Pakistan, India, China, Colombia, Australia, Thailand and Japan have also stepped into ethanol production to offset gasoline demands, though they still do not have significant production and delivery infrastructure.

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