Modern society is deeply dependent on petrochemicals, especially oil as a fuel, which contributes to air pollution and resource depletion. As an alternative, biomass energy is gaining traction and is showing promise as a sustainable energy source for the future, thanks to its carbon neutrality and renewability.
Stop what you’re doing and take a look around. The clothes you’re wearing, the components in your laptop, the ink in your printer – most of them are either petrochemicals or wouldn’t function without them. It’s no exaggeration to say that modern society runs on petroleum. Most of the products we use every day rely on petrochemicals, and this has a huge impact on our lives and the economy as a whole.
This dependence on oil is even greater when it comes to fuels. We use petroleum to power our cars, planes, ships, and other forms of transportation, as well as as the main raw material for generating electricity. However, petroleum has a number of problems when used as a fuel. The main one is that the combustion process produces carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, hydrocarbons, and other substances that contribute to global warming and air pollution. This is not just an environmental issue, but a direct threat to human survival. There are many other problems associated with pollution. There’s also the issue of finite resources that will eventually run out. Therefore, we need to find an alternative to petroleum that will not pollute the environment. But what are the alternatives to petroleum?
One alternative that comes to mind is biomass. Biomass is a resource that is expected to replace oil and is currently used primarily as a fuel for transportation. Biomass energy is considered carbon-neutral because it returns carbon dioxide from plant growth back into the air, creating a carbon cycle. This means that it doesn’t add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and it’s being seen as an alternative to the current energy crisis and environmental concerns.
Bioethanol is a type of biomass energy that accounts for 80% of transportation biofuels. It’s a fuel that’s gaining traction due to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a mandatory blend of up to 10% bioethanol in transportation fuels implemented by many countries around the world. This opens the door for bioethanol to replace fossil fuels, making it an important pillar of environmental protection and sustainable energy policy.
Bioethanol is produced from three types of feedstocks: sugary, starchy, and woody. Depending on the feedstock, additional processes are added to the bioethanol production process. First of all, sugarcane, sugar beets, etc. are fermented and refined into fuel alcohol. Fermentation is a process in which sugars extracted from raw materials are fermented with microorganisms to produce ethanol. Refining is the process of evaporating water from an aqueous solution of ethanol mixed with water to produce a high concentration of alcohol. These two processes are relatively simple, and ethanol production from starch-based feedstocks is efficient and economical.
For starch-based feedstocks such as corn, wheat, etc., the saccharification process is added to the production process of the previous saccharide-based feedstock. This is due to the fact that the main component of starchy feedstocks is starch, as opposed to sugar, which is the main component of sugary feedstocks. Starch has a large molecular size and cannot be directly consumed by microorganisms, so it needs to be converted into smaller glucose. The process of saccharification is carried out by saccharifying enzymes, most commonly amylase. The enzyme hydrolyzes the starch and converts it into glucose, which is then fermented and refined to produce bioethanol, just like the sugar-based feedstock. This process is a bit more complicated than that of starch-based feedstocks, but it is still commercially viable.
Cellulosic feedstocks, such as rice straw or grasses, require a pretreatment step added to the starchy process. The main component of cellulosic materials is cellulose, which has a very large molecular structure and cannot be broken down by saccharification. They also contain lignin, an insoluble, recalcitrant polymeric compound that hinders the degradation of polysaccharides and reduces the surface area for microorganisms, so both pretreatment and saccharification are required. In pretreatment, the molecular structure is loosened by acid or base treatment at high temperatures, and then enzymes such as cellulase and xylanase are used to break down the sugars. Fermentation and refining then follow to produce bioethanol. This process is more complex and expensive than other feedstocks, which is why it is not yet commercially available.
In this article, we”ve discussed the production process of bioethanol. As we mentioned above, the process becomes more complex as we move from sugary, starchy, and woody feedstocks. This means that the cost of the process increases, and from an economic point of view, the process for woody feedstocks is not yet commercially viable. However, there is a limitation in that saccharide and starch-based materials use food as raw materials and are not economically feasible due to the high cost of raw materials. For this reason, technologies are currently being developed to minimize the cost of wood-based processes, and technologies are also being developed to use algae as raw materials, which significantly reduces the cost of raw materials.
Biomass technologies still have technical challenges and are expensive compared to fossil fuels such as oil. However, biomass has the potential to replace oil as a finite resource at a time when it is becoming increasingly depleted. It is also a renewable fuel, unlike fossil fuels, and has fewer environmental concerns, which will become more important in the future. The development and utilization of alternative energy sources, such as biomass, is essential for a sustainable energy supply, which is closely linked to the survival of future generations. Alongside this, policies and technical support to increase energy efficiency and minimize environmental impact are also essential.
