Mascoma is focusing on improving the first steps of the process--pretreating raw materials and converting cellulose into sugars--which South says are key to reducing costs. In the conventional pretreatment step, materials such as wood chips are soaked in a dilute solution of sulfuric acid and then heated. This breaks down complex lignin structures that form a "shield" around the cellulose, says Charles Wyman, Mascoma co-founder and professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the University of California, in Riverside. Wyman's research has analyzed the mechanisms involved in this process, helping the company optimize this step. Mascoma has also developed technology for improving the next step: breaking down the now accessible cellulose into sugars by using enzymes produced by organisms. In the latter part of the process, these sugars are fermented to make ethanol.
Wyman estimates that the company's technology could produce ethanol for about the same cost as producing ethanol from corn, and eventually for less money. This would be a significant improvement over other technology. A cost analysis at an NREL pilot plant, for example, suggests that it would cost more than two dollars a gallon to make cellulosic ethanol--about double the cost of making corn ethanol. But even NREL researchers are confident that this cost will be cut in half and meet corn-ethanol costs within six years, Douglas says.
Producing enough ethanol to replace a significant fraction of gasoline consumption is still many years away, however. It will require further improving both the technology and the industrial processes, including the challenges that go with handling large amounts of bulky biomass. "We are definitely not there yet," says MIT's Stephanopoulos. "Processes today are clearly uneconomical."
But Douglas says researchers are optimistic that continued funding and the application of new tools will make widespread cellulosic ethanol possible: "The pathways are pretty clear."
Comments
dickcaro
11/16/2006
Posts:8
Burning it, on the other hand, is not wasteful. Pulpwood forests are a renewable resource, so the CO2 that's generated is recycled back into more wood. Beats burning oil or gas in the same boiler.
jpdemers
11/17/2006
Posts:40
Please include the words * Chemical engineering - ethanol * in the subject header.
Thanks.
Lambchop
Lambchop_Che...
12/31/2006
Posts:1
check out this company, dynamotive.com. they are successfully converting forestry wastes into bio-fuel. this shows more promise than ethanol.
cliff lewis, sappi fine paper, north america
cdlewis
07/30/2007
Posts:6
If you are interested in a partnership contact Neil Farbstein, President of Vulvox Nano/biotechnology at protn7@att.net
protn7
11/22/2006
Posts:69
jdrodrigu
01/09/2007
Posts:1
Rocky
rockypatel12...
07/23/2007
Posts:1
N O M
04/17/2008
Posts:23
Neil Farbstein is emphatically and most unequivocally not a rancid distended crap-sack of duplicitous swindling double dealing defaecation. Furthermore, he's assuredly not a colossal foul jissom bucket of pumped-up delusional human excrement posing as a profoundly psychotic muttonhead.
[URL]http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=21242&st=105[/URL]
fivedoughnut
04/20/2008
Posts:1
porosity
12/27/2006
Posts:3
So far, the best site I've found is <a href="http://www.investincellulosicethanol.com"> www.InvestInCellulosicEthanol.com </a>.
m_albertson
02/03/2007
Posts:4
jeanwilliam
01/13/2008
Posts:2
Daddeo01905
04/07/2007
Posts:1
cdlewis
10/29/2007
Posts:6
Brian Maki
12/17/2007
Posts:1
jeanwilliam
05/06/2008
Posts:2
I am from Green Land Company, Inc. which is based in Troy, Alabama.
We have some Jatropha seeds and seedlings.
My E-mail address is vinay_bhalu@yahoo.com
Thank you,
Vinay
vpatel58244
11/04/2009
Posts:1