China's Cellulose Ethanol Industrialization Officially Started

The industrialization of cellulosic ethanol in China has been officially started. The cellulose ethanol technology we developed can convert all the five carbon sugars and six carbon sugars in the crop straws, and the unit consumption of ethanol raw materials is reduced by nearly 40% compared to the existing technologies.

At the same time, we also pioneered the ethanol-biomass co-production model of fuel ethanol. While producing fuel ethanol, we will use lignin, which is difficult to use, to generate electricity so that straw can be fully and efficiently used.

Cellulose fuel ethanol is a biomass energy utilization project that has been promoted in recent years in China. According to statistics, China can collect about 900 million tons of straw each year, and remove nearly 200 million tons of straw each year for the production of ethanol, which is used for papermaking, feedstuff, fertilizer conversion, and collection losses. There is sufficient amount of cellulosic ethanol to develop. Raw material protection.

According to the person in charge of the technology of the COFCO Group, straw and other agricultural and forestry wastes mainly contain three components: cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Lignin is not easily converted and is generally used as fuel; the six carbon sugars produced by cellulose hydrolysis can be used. It is directly used to produce ethanol; the five-carbon sugar (also known as xylose) produced by hydrolysis of hemicellulose is difficult to produce ethanol.

The existing domestic cellulosic ethanol technology usually uses this part of the five carbon sugars to produce biogas or xylose series products. Generally, 7 tons of straw can produce 1 ton of fuel ethanol.

In accordance with the development of technologies and processes, the industry currently divides fuel ethanol into three categories: first-generation food ethanol produced from corn, wheat, and other grains, and 1.5th crops from cash crops such as cassava, sugarcane, and sweet sorghum stalks. Non-grain ethanol, second-generation cellulosic ethanol based on cellulose materials such as corn stover and corn cob.

The policy adopted by China for fuel ethanol is "stabilize 1 generation, develop 1.5 generations, and promote 2 generations." Cellulose ethanol is technically different from food ethanol and non-grain ethanol, and it is the focus of fuel ethanol research and development at home and abroad. Currently, only the United States and Italy have industrial-scale cellulose ethanol devices.