Page 86 - Biofuels Refining and Performance

Chapter
3

Bioethanol: Market and

Production Processes

Mohammad J.Taherzadeh and Keikhosro Karimi

3.1 Introduction
Ethanol (C H OH) is a clear, colorless, flammable chemical. It has been
5
2
produced and used as an alcoholic beverage for several thousand years.
Ethanol also has several industrial applications (e.g., in detergents, toi-
letries, coatings, and pharmaceuticals) and has been used as trans-
portation fuel for more than a century. Nicholas Otto used ethanol in the
internal combustion engine invented in 1897 [1]. However, ethanol did
not have a major impact in the fuel market until the 1970s, when two
oil crises occurred in 1973 and 1979. Since the 1980s, ethanol has been
a major actor in the fuel market as an alternative fuel as well as an oxy-
genated compound for gasoline. Ethanol can be produced synthetically
from oil and natural gas, or biologically from sugar, starch, and ligno-
cellulosic materials. The biologically produced ethanol is sometimes
called fermentative ethanol or bioethanol. Application of bioethanol as
[2] and is able to fulfill
fuel has no or very limited net emission of CO 2
the Kyoto Climate Change Protocol (1997) to decrease the net emission
of CO [3]. In this chapter, the global market and the production of
2
bioethanol are briefly reviewed.

3.2 Global Market of Bioethanol and
Future Prospects
Ethanol is produced from a variety of feedstocks. Fermentative ethanol
is produced from grains, molasses, sugarcane juice, fruits, surplus wine,

69
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click here for terms of use.