Make cellulosic ethanol?

Question

Does anyone know how to make this (as a science fair project )or is it way complex?

Does anyone have instructions?

Answer 1

There are two ways of producing alcohol from cellulose:

    * Cellulolysis processes which consist of hydrolysis on pretreated lignocellulosic materials followed by fermentation and distillation.

    * Gasification that transforms the lignocellulosic raw material into gaseous carbon monoxide and hydrogen. These gases can be converted to ethanol by fermentation or chemical catalysis.

They both include distillation as the final step to isolate the pure ethanol.

There are four or five stages to produce ethanol using a biological approach:

   1. A "pretreatment" phase, to make the lignocellulosic material such as wood or straw amenable to hydrolysis,

   2. Cellulose hydrolysis (cellulolysis), to break down the molecules into sugars;

   3. Separation of the sugar solution from the residual materials, notably lignin;

   4. Microbial fermentation of the sugar solution;

   5. Distillation to produce 99.5% pure alcohol.

For more information on this process it would probably be wise to check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_...