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Scientific challenges of bioethanol production in Brazil

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Abstract

Bioethanol (fuel alcohol) has been produced by industrial alcoholic fermentation processes in Brazil since the beginning of the twentieth century. Currently, 432 mills and distilleries crush about 625 million tons of sugarcane per crop, producing about 27 billion liters of ethanol and 38.7 million tons of sugar. The production of bioethanol from sugarcane represents a major large-scale technology capable of producing biofuel efficiently and economically, providing viable substitutes to gasoline. The combination of immobilization of CO2 by sugarcane crops by photosynthesis into biomass together with alcoholic fermentation of this biomass has allowed production of a clean and high-quality liquid fuel that contains 93% of the original energy found in sugar. Over the last 30 years, several innovations have been introduced to Brazilian alcohol distilleries resulting in the improvement of plant efficiency and economic competitiveness. Currently, the main scientific challenges are to develop new technologies for bioethanol production from first and second generation feedstocks that exhibit positive energy balances and appropriately meet environmental sustainability criteria. This review focuses on these aspects and provides special emphasis on the selection of new yeast strains, genetic breeding, and recombinant DNA technology, as applied to bioethanol production processes.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia do Bioetanol, Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia, all from Brazil, for financial support, the two anonymous reviewers for their comments, and Dr. Neil Andrew Brown for critical reading of the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fermentec, Av. Antonia Pizzinatto Sturion 1155, Piracicaba, SP, Brazil

    Henrique V. Amorim & Mário Lucio Lopes

  2. Laboratório Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia do Bioetanol (CTBE), Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil

    Juliana Velasco de Castro Oliveira, Marcos S. Buckeridge & Gustavo Henrique Goldman

  3. Departamento de Botânica, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, INCT do Bioetanol, São Paulo, Brazil

    Marcos S. Buckeridge

  4. Departamento de Ciências Farmacêuticas, Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, INCT do Bioetanol, Av. do Café S/N, CEP 14040-903, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil

    Gustavo Henrique Goldman

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  1. Henrique V. Amorim
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  2. Mário Lucio Lopes
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  3. Juliana Velasco de Castro Oliveira
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  4. Marcos S. Buckeridge
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  5. Gustavo Henrique Goldman
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Correspondence to Gustavo Henrique Goldman.

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Amorim, H.V., Lopes, M.L., de Castro Oliveira, J.V. et al. Scientific challenges of bioethanol production in Brazil. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 91, 1267–1275 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3437-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3437-6

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