A major roadblock to scaling up the use of cellulosic biofuel is the difficulty and expense of extracting the ethanol from these materials.
The ethanol currently used in gasoline mixtures come from fermentation of sugars present in corn kernels, and is a relatively simple and inexpensive process. However, the sugar in cornstalks and other cellulosic biofuel is locked in chemical structures that are harder to break and the ethanol yield is lower, which means that manufacturers of cellulosic ethanol require much more raw material than the ethanol manufacturers.
Scientists are exploring ways to extract cellulosic ethanol more effectively. One possible solution is to engineer new microbes that can break down cellulose into sugars that can more easily be fermented to form ethanol.
The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center is a consortium of organizations working to conduct this sort of "transformational biofuels research". Go Green!
No comments:
Post a Comment