Nanotechnology Could Reduce Costs of Cellulosic Ethanol?
Cellulosic ethanol is an exciting technology which promises to convert the abundant sources of organic waste worldwide (kitchen waste, yard waste, paper industry waste, etc.) into green alternative fuel.
The traditioinal production process of cellulosic ethanol involves breaking down the cellulose into smaller units (hydrolysis reaction) on pretreated lignocellulosic materials followed by fermentation and distillation.The hydrolysis can be achived by using either acids or enzymes to breakdown the pretreated cellulosic biomass.The process of using enzymes for hydrolysis has been more expensive than the other approach, as the enzymes cost a lot of money, and typically a significant portion are lost during the cellulose degradation.
Researchers from the Louisiana Tech University have developed a way of immobilizing the enzymes, greatly reducing enzyme loss and its corresponding costs. Details on the new approach are scant other than that it uses "nanotechnology", but it seems likely that it employs some sort of charged particles to affix the non-catalytic domains of enzymes to reactor walls or a porous network, or else uses extracellular matrix proteins to bind the enzymes.
The university estimates that a commercial plant would save approximately $32M USD (they did not specify if this was a yearly total or perhaps over the plant's lifetime) and that under the federally established goal to reach 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol, the net saving could be $7.5B USD, if the goal was reached. LTU also notes that they estimate cellulosic ethanol to reduce carbon emissions by 89 percent over traditional fuels.
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The traditioinal production process of cellulosic ethanol involves breaking down the cellulose into smaller units (hydrolysis reaction) on pretreated lignocellulosic materials followed by fermentation and distillation.The hydrolysis can be achived by using either acids or enzymes to breakdown the pretreated cellulosic biomass.The process of using enzymes for hydrolysis has been more expensive than the other approach, as the enzymes cost a lot of money, and typically a significant portion are lost during the cellulose degradation.
Researchers from the Louisiana Tech University have developed a way of immobilizing the enzymes, greatly reducing enzyme loss and its corresponding costs. Details on the new approach are scant other than that it uses "nanotechnology", but it seems likely that it employs some sort of charged particles to affix the non-catalytic domains of enzymes to reactor walls or a porous network, or else uses extracellular matrix proteins to bind the enzymes.
The university estimates that a commercial plant would save approximately $32M USD (they did not specify if this was a yearly total or perhaps over the plant's lifetime) and that under the federally established goal to reach 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol, the net saving could be $7.5B USD, if the goal was reached. LTU also notes that they estimate cellulosic ethanol to reduce carbon emissions by 89 percent over traditional fuels.
see more
Labels: co2, costs, ethanol, waste
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