Innovative pretreatment of Nordic wood for fuel-ethanol
The main objective of this project is to develop new pretreatment techniques that will reduce the overall production costs for fuel-ethanol from Nordic lignocelluloses biomass.
Substitution of gasoline with fuel-ethanol from lignocelluloses is estimated to reduce CO2 emissions in the transport sector by up to 90 % (IEA, 2004). Fuel-ethanol from agricultural crops (e.g. sugar, corn) is currently produced commercially. However, land available for agricultural crops is not sufficient to support a large biofuels industry in addition to food production. Thus, there is a need to expand the raw material sources for biofuels production.
Increasing concern for man made climate change and instability of oil supplying regions has increased the search for renewable and sustainable energy, including biobased liquid fuels. However, today’s production costs for biomass-to-fuel are too high to compete with oil-derived fuels. Unfortunately, limited resources have been focused on understanding the fundamental mechanisms involved in wood pretreatment for biofuel production. In this project we aim to develop novel pretreatment techniques that will reduce the overall production costs, thus making fuel-ethanol from Nordic wood biomass cost competitive.
Key figures
Project duration: 2007 - 2010
Total Project Budget is 11.3 MNOK
Nordic Energy Research contributes 8 MNOK (71 %)
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