Ethanol and Value-Added Co-Products

Dear Colleagues,

Over the years, ethanol has attracted global interest as a renewable and clean liquid fuel. Currently, feedstocks for commercial fuel ethanol production include cereal grains (e.g., corn, wheat, barley, cassava) and sugar crops (e.g., sugarcane, sugar beets, sweet sorghum). Sugarcane and corn are the two feedstocks that have been used most extensively. Despite the commercial success, relentless research efforts have been made to improve the economics of ethanol production through increase of ethanol yield and development of value-added co-products. Some of these efforts have reached commercialization, for example, the extraction of corn oil and the implementation of the D3MAX process for additional ethanol yield from corn fibers at many corn ethanol plants. Production of biogas from the wastes generated in the ethanol production process to provide an energy source for internal uses also has been practiced at commercial scale.

Lignocellulosic biomass recently attracted interest as an alternate potential feedstock for ethanol production mainly because of its availability in large quantities. Research has been performed to develop process technologies for conversion of biomass to ethanol via either the sugar platform or the syngas platform. Several of these processes have been demonstrated at pilot and semi-commercial scales. Industrial chemicals and consumer products that can be made from C5 sugars and lignin have been considered as potential high value-added co-products of cellulosic ethanol.

The goal of this Special Issue is to publish both recent innovative research results, as well as review papers on the production of ethanol and value-added co-products from sugar-based, starch-based and cellulosic biomass feedstocks by biochemical processes. Review and research papers on development of novel enzymes and microbial strains are also of interest. If you would like to contribute a review paper, please contact one of the editors to discuss the topic relevance before submitting the manuscript.

Sincerely,
Dr. Nhuan Nghiem
Prof. Dr. Tae Hyun Kim
Guest Editors

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