Treatment of Lignocellulosic Waste for the Production of Bioethanol

Abstract

Bioethanol produced from renewable biomass, especially lignocellulosic biomass, provides opportunities for sustainable, clean er, environmentally safe, carbon neutral and green alternatives to fossil fuels. This literature review briefly describes the aspects related to bioethanol production and focuses on theoretical approaches for process improvement and improving the efficiency of bioethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass. A systematic review of previous literature is conducted. Known data sources are consulted and relevant research is filtered through certain keywords. Although lignocellulosic waste is present in massive quantities on planet earth, it is not properly utilized for bioethanol production due to many obstacles in the bioconversion process, such as pretreatment, high cost of enzymes, conversion of mixed sugars, fermentation and distillation. Studies show that high grade bioethanol is obtained by saccharification, fermentation and stra tified distillation. The production of bioethanol from lignocellulosic waste offers the advantage of generating a renewable and less polluting source of energy than fossil fuels. Different treatments and processes have been developed to generate a production of bioethanol that has a higher yield with low costs with the aim of increasing the availability of this energy source to the general public. Lignocellulosic ethanol is not yet competitive enough and it is necessary to improve several parameters such as primary treatment, microorganisms for fermentation and distillation to obtain a high purity product.