Assessment of Conversion Technologies for Bioalcohol Fuel ...

and hydrogen from biomass (Category X). Of these, the main technologies relevant for
this study are acid hydrolysis and enzymatic hydrolysis (Categories VIII and IX), which
produce alcohols by breaking down cellulose into component sugars that are then
fermented.
The principal thermochemical and biochemical processes for bioalcohol production are
described in more detail in Sections 3 and 4, respectively. An estimated fifty or more
organizations worldwide have concentrated their efforts on the production of
bioalcohols employing such processes. Information about these organizations and
their technology development activities and progress, as well as the characteristics
and available data on their technologies was collected as a major part of this project.
This effort included a standardized survey/data request sent to all identified developers
of biomass-to-alcohol production technologies. Only publicly-releasable information
about individual developers and their technologies was collected, excluding any
confidential or proprietary data. Responses to this direct information request were
supplemented with information obtained from other public sources, including published
papers, websites and media reports. The resulting information is summarized in
Appendix I (Technology Developer Profiles).
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