Biomass Generating Ethanol - Study of Agricultural Waste(II)

Recently, the traditional biomass energy accounts for almost 14 to 15﹪of total energy consumption in the world. For centuries, its combustion provides basic energy requirements for rural households and developing of traditional industries. With the coming shortage of fossil fuel, many non-oil-producing countries have enthusiastically researched other possible alternatives of energy sources over recent decades. Among these, production of ethanol by fermentation on a large scale has been of considerable interest to meet the increased demand for new sources of energy. It not only solves the environmental pollution by agriculture waste, but also the production of new biomass energy. Cellulose and starch are major constituents of agricultural waste. The degradation of these two substances is exclusively biological in our ecosystems. Recent increasing demands for alternative energy sources have prompted interest in immobilized microbial cell systems for conversion of biomass to fuels. Fermentative production of ethanol from renewable resources has received attention due to increasing petroleum shortage. For the last two decades, ethanol production from agriculture waste by the co- immobilized-cell system has been studied extensively. The use of a co-immobilized-cell system is highly desirable to achieve ethanol productivity that is higher that of free cells and separately immobilized cells and enzyme. Over the last few years, new approaches with great potential have been used, that is, the application of co-immobilized mixed cultures for fermenting of starchy and cellulose to ethanol. This proposal is a continuation of a last-year project. We have great harvest in the last-year project as: (1) the high-yield microbic cell lines have been successfully induced and selected, (2) the suspension and immobilization cultured system has been well established and investigated, (3) the co-immobilized-cell system have been set up and worked. This year, in this two-year project, we will investigate the optimal production condition and operation model by the technology platform. The bioreactor study will be performed to biotransform agricultural waste, and to produce the high-yield ethanol fermentation broth quickly. The final purpose is to use and develop new co-immobilized-cell system to rapidly deal with agricultural waste, and simultaneously transform them into useful biomass energy – ethanol. Moreover, the equipment and cost should be reduced as lowas possible. By combination and coherence of different high technology with high efficiency and low cost, we can predict the tremendous potential of this biomass energy production technology platform.

Project ID:PB9501-0159
External Project ID:NSC95-2623-7182-002-ET