Bioethanol

Abstract

Climate change is one of the worst environmental problems worldwide related with CO2 emissions. As is known the burning of fossil fuels has led to ever-increasing levels of greenhouse pollution associated with global warming (Venkata Mohan et al., Bioresour Technol 99:59–67 (2008)). Due to environmental problems, the seek for sustainable alternatives of fuels has become mandatory, having as the most promising alternative the use of biomass as an energy source as well to decrease CO2 emissions. There are several biofuels that can be obtained from biomass, highlighting the bioethanol as a promising renewable and sustainable fuel for tackling today’s global energy crisis and the worsening environment quality. Bioethanol has been recognized as a potential replacement to fossil fuel-based energy, and it can overcome the issue of exhaustion of energy sources and reduce the environmental pollution. Compared to fossil fuels, using bioethanol could reduce more than 80% of carbon emissions (Qiao and Lü, in Advances in 2nd generation of bioethanol production. Woodhead Publishing, Sawston, pp 213–227 (2021) [1]). This chapter aims to show an overview of bioethanol production focusing on the production of bioethanol through lignocellulosic biomass. The traditional feedstock for bioethanol production, its conventional production process highlighting two steps, the biomass pretreatment and separation process. As well due to the necessity of enhance the process it is shown some proposals for intensified processes to produce bioethanol.