Science And Technology Culture: Industrialization Of Cellulosic Ethanol In China

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The industrialization of prime ethanol has officially started.

Reporters yesterday learned in the interview with COFCO that COFCO has jointly developed a 50 thousand ton process package for cellulose ethanol, which is suitable for various biomass raw materials such as corn stalks and so on. COFCO biochemical energy (Zhaodong) Co., Ltd. started the construction of the 50 thousand ton / year fiber and vitamin ethanol demonstration production line with the technology package, which will be the first set of 50 thousand ton cellulose ethanol industrial scale plant in China.

"The cellulosic ethanol technology developed by us can ferment and pform five carbon and six carbon sugars in the crop straw, and the consumption of ethanol raw materials has been reduced by nearly 40% compared with the existing technology.

At the same time, we also created a fuel ethanol bioelectricity mode of CO production of alcohol and electricity. While producing fuel ethanol, we will use difficult lignin to generate electricity, so that the straw can be utilized efficiently and efficiently.

Li Yuan, general manager of the bioenergy Department of COFCO, summed up the cost advantages of cellulosic ethanol technology.

COFCO has been in the forefront of the domestic research and development of fuel ethanol and has 40% of the fuel ethanol production capacity in the whole country. In 2007, the world's first cassava plant was established.

A non grain ethanol plant.

Cellulose fuel ethanol is a biomass energy utilization project in recent years in China.

According to statistics, China collects about 9 million tons of straw every year. Besides removing paper, feed, fertilizer, and collecting losses, nearly 2 million tons of straw can be used to produce ethanol every year, and there are sufficient raw materials for the development of cellulosic ethanol.

According to COFCO technology leader, straw and other agricultural and forestry waste have 3 main components, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, lignin is not easy to convert, generally used as fuel; cellulose hydrolysis produces six carbon sugars can be directly.

Production of ethanol; hydrolysis of hemicellulose to produce five carbon sugars (also known as xylose) is difficult to produce ethanol.

The existing cellulosic ethanol technology usually uses this part of five carbon sugar to produce biogas or xylose products. Generally 7 tons of straw can produce 1 tons of fuel ethanol.

COFCO has been developing cellulosic fuel ethanol technology since 2006, taking the advanced process route of simultaneous conversion of five sugar and six sugar into ethanol with foreign countries. The conversion rate of cellulose and the ethanol concentration of fermented mature mash reached the international advanced level, and the straw consumption of ethylene glycol per ton dropped sharply.

COFCO R & D group has completed a pilot study of 500 tons / year in 7 years. During the period, more than 10 universities, Academia Sinica, Sinopec group, Purdue University, Denmark, and so on have conquered a series of technical difficulties such as raw materials pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation, rectification, sewage treatment and so on. 25 authorized patents have been granted to the state, and finally a 50 thousand ton / year cellulose ethanol production process package has been set up, which can provide technical support for the construction of demonstration facilities of 10000 tons.

According to the development process of technology and technology, fuel ethanol is divided into three categories: the first generation of grain ethanol produced from corn, wheat and other foods, the 1.5 generation of non grain ethanol, cassava, sugar cane, sweet sorghum stalk and other cash crops, and the second generation of cellulosic ethanol from cornstalk and corn core.

China's policy on fuel ethanol is "stabilizing the 1 generation, developing the 1.5 generation and promoting the 2 generation".

Cellulosic ethanol is technically different from grain ethanol and non grain ethanol. It is the focus of research and development of fuel ethanol at home and abroad. At present, only the United States and Italy have industrial scale cellulosic ethanol installations.