Ethanol from Biomass Gasification Vs Cellulosic Ethanol

Here's some interesting data:

"Companies working on the other broad category of cellulosic ethanol technology, biochemical conversions, are targeting the cellulose and hemicellulose content of biomass by using pretreatments, enzymes and microbial fermentation.

This approach, however, leaves more than one-fourth of the biomass bound in lignin. Gasifying biomass converts it all with a theoretical maximum ethanol yield of 187 gallons per ton, significantly higher than the other cellulosic ethanol technologies.

While the theoretical yield is promising, the actual conversions being reported by companies working on the thermochemical gasification process are closer to 120 gallons per ton, Brown said. That compares with the theoretical maximum yield of 110 gallons per ton for corn-based ethanol, which the industry is approaching"

I was under the impression that you can get only about 60-70 gallons per T of biomass, so this is certainly great news!

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