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Honda co-develops process to make biomass ethanol
Reuters / September 14, 2006 - 6:49 am
TOKYO -- Honda Motor Co. said today it has co-developed the world's first practical process for producing ethanol out of cellulosic biomass in what would be a big step toward using non-edible plant materials as fuel.
Ethanol is a major source of motor fuel in Brazil and is gaining popularity in the United States, but the renewable fuel is produced mainly from sugar cane and corn, raising the issue of balancing supply against the use of the crops as food.
Honda and its partner Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth, or RITE, a nonprofit entity set up by the Japanese government and private enterprises, said the new method allows large volumes of ethanol to be produced from widely available waste wood, leaves and other so-called soft biomass.
Current technology for converting cellulosic biomass yielded impractically low levels of ethanol due to the interference of fermentation inhibitors with the function of microorganisms that convert sugar into alcohol. The fermentation inhibitors are formed primarily during the process of separating cellulose and hemicellulose from soft biomass.
The new process uses a microorganism developed by RITE that helps reduce such interference, allowing for far more efficient ethanol production.
"This achievement solves the last remaining fundamental hurdle to ethanol production from soft biomass," Hideaki Yukawa, chief researcher at RITE's molecular microbiology and genetics lab, told a news conference in Tokyo.
Honda's research unit Honda R&D Co. said it aimed to set up a pilot plant in 2008 at the earliest to test the technology for practical application. Commercial application has not been discussed yet, a senior managing director at Honda R&D said.
Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, is on its way to becoming a mainstream world commodity as soaring prices for crude oil and gasoline push consumers to use more "green" fuels produced from renewable resources.
Ethanol production is also attracting the attention of investors. Producing ethanol from corn yields profit margins of over 20 percent, Yukawa said, citing U.S. government data -- much higher than selling the crop as food.
Bio-ethanol is also carbon-neutral since carbon dioxide released by the combustion of the fuel is offset by the CO2 captured by plants through photosynthesis.
Japan hopes to replace about 3 million barrels (500,000 kilolitres) of transportation fuels with bio-ethanol a year by 2010. In the United States, the Bush administration has called for improving technologies in order to reduce U.S. oil imports from the Middle East by three-quarters by 2025.
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