S194: Novel pretreatment methods for bioethanol production

Development of biobased fuels and products from renewable resources as an alternative to petroleum and its products is the need of the hour. It addresses the global economy as well as rising environmental concerns. The US and Brazil produce more than 70% of world ethanol utilizing corn and sugarcane, respectively. The US Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 mandate the production of 36 billion gallons by 2022, of which 16 billion gallons are to come from lignocellulosic feedstocks. The US and EU have supported research on herbaceous energy crops since the mid-1980s. In the US, funding proposed upto $1.6 billion for renewable energy research, development and production targeting cellulosic ethanol. Pretreatment is the first and most important step in the biomass to ethanol process. This presentation will deal with the necessity of biomass pretreatment and several existing pretreatment methods such as dilute acid, AFX, clean fractionation and some novel strategies such as high shear bioreactor, microwave, near-critical water, green solvents, and ultrasound methods along with their descriptions, relevant theories and results. In addition, strategy for combining some of these pretreatment strategies will be discussed.