What is bioethanol?
Ethanol can be produced either by petrochemical feedstock or by fermentation. Bioethanol is an alcohol, and most is made using a process similar to brewing beer where starch crops are converted into sugars, the sugars are fermented into ethanol, and then the ethanol is distilled into its final form. Bioethanol can be produced from any biological feedstock that contains appreciable amounts of sugar or materials that can be converted into sugar such as starch or cellulose. Bioethanol is readily obtained from the sugar or starch in crops. Maize and sugarcane are two examples for typical feedstocks. Further, bioethanol can be produced from a variety of other crops, such as sugar beet, sorghum, switchgrass, barley, hemp, kenaf, potatoes, cassava and sunflower, as well as many types of cellulose waste. It can be made from the stalks, wastes, clippings, straw, corn cobs, and other farm waste now used for fertilizer, animal feed, or electric power plant fuels. Bioethanol can be used in pure fo
