Biofuel

Bioethanol

Bioethanol can be produced from biomass materials that contain sugar, starch or cellulose. Feedstocks can be agricultural crops like sugar cane, wheat, barley, potatoes, corn or waste paper, sawdust and straw.

• Sugary or starchy crops like wheat can be fermented and distilled into bioethanol.
   
• To produce ethanol from cellulosic biomass, steam is applied to break down and decompose the biomass into glucose, and followed by hydrolysis. The glucose then converts into alcohol by fermentation. After fermentation, distillation is required to remove water and other impurities in the alcohol-containing mixture. The production of bioethanol from cellulosic biomass is still under research.

Simplified Bioethanol Process Flow Diagram

(Source for above: "This link will open in a new windowThis web page has hyperlinks which may transfer you to third-party website.Bioethanol - A Renewable Transportation Fuel from Biomass")

Ethanol can be applied in pure form or blended with petrol as automotive fuel. Due to its volatile property, ethanol is very suitable to be used in direct-injection petrol engines as a substitute for petrol. Generally speaking, no engine modification is required if less than 10% by volume of ethanol is blended with petrol and used as fuel. Fuel with higher concentration of ethanol will require engine modifications.

Flexible-fuel vehicles are cars and trucks that are capable of running on petrol or petrol blended with any level of ethanol up to 85 percent. They are built with special fuel system components designed to be compatible with higher ethanol concentrations.