BIO-ETHANOL
PREPARATION
Bio-Ethanol is primarily produced from three main sources.
1.Starch or sugar crops.
2.Cellulose[following enzymatic hydrolysis]
3.Cellulose[following chemical hydrolysis]
Several micro organisms including Bacteria and fungi are involved in the production of various biofuels utilizing various substrates. Commercial production of Ethanol is based on starch and sugar crops . Cellulose materials are first converted into Glucose and other fermentable sugars which are subsequently fermented by yeast into Alcohol.Trichoderma reisei[convert cellulose into glucose] Sacharomyces cerevisiae[hexoses] and Eschirichia coli[pentose] are the three important microorganisms involved in the process of Bio-Ethanol production.
USES
Bio- Ethanol is widely used for transport purposes in Brazil and USA.The use of Bio-Ethanol replacing petrol began during 1980's. Bio-Fuels used for transport purpose should have certain desirable features like
1.Portability of sufficient quantities in vehicles.
2.Burning in the internal combustion engines.
3.Roughly equal to petrol in energy content.
The advantages of Bio-Ethanol over Petrol are that it has a higher octane number and lower hydrocarbon emission compared to petrol.