Integration of Biology and Engineering into an Economical and Energy-Efficient 2G Bioethanol Biorefinery

The European Union has set a 10 % mandatory target for the share of renewables (including biofuels) in transportation sector by 2020 in Europe. To achieve this goal sustainable biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass must deploy in Europe very soon since the competition between food vs. energy prevents further (significant) increase on the current first-generation biofuels already in the market. This new generation of biofuels still needs intensive efforts on R&D to fulfill significant GHG reductions in the production chain and to represent an alternative to food-crops derived fuels. Additionally, the use of agricultural residues, industrial or domestic wastes will improve significantly the environmental performance of 2G biofuels. The project will focus on the effective integration and development of advanced technologies through the combined use of Biology and Engineering for the production of second generation (2G) bioethanol, from the most representatives European (wheat straw) and Brazilian (sugarcane bagasse and straw) feedstocks. The research activities will be concentrated in the following areas: i) Feedstock pre-treatment ii) Conversion technologies to second generation (2G) bioethanol iii) Low-temperature distillation iv) Conversion technologies (using the bioprocess-derived materials) for electricity and other added-value materials v) Full process integration and sustainability assessment The effective combination of pre-treatment, enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation using adapted and robust strains displaying new phenotype features, is a clear objective of this proposal since is the key to the economic lignocellulosic ethanol production. At the end of the project, we aim to get a meaningful technological process integration of : i) For Europe: energy-efficient production of bioethanol and electricity from 100% of wheat straw ii) For Brazil: energy-efficient production of bioethanol, sugar and electricity from 100% utilization of sugarcane crop, including bagasse and straw.