Ethanol production and the environment

Feasibility of Large-Scale Biofuel Production

“…Moreover, when the scale of biofuel vroduction is enlarged, pollution, soil erosion, and other adverse environmental impacts can exhibit nonlinear behavior. So far, studies on the environmental impacts of biofuel production have focused on immediate environmental effects, such as the effluents of ethanol plants as potential sources of pollution (e.g., Bevilacqua et al 1981, Hunsaker et al 1989.…”

“…Pollution by effluents. Distillery waste, the principal component of effluent from ethanol plants, has a biological oxygen demand (a standard measure of pollution) after five days (BOD,) of 1000-78,000 mg1L and hence poses a serious waste disposal problem (de B a z~a et al 1991, Frings et al 1992, Hunsaker et al 1989,Mishra 1993.Approximately 10-14 L of stillage waste (distillery waste) are generated per liter of gross production of ethanol ( F l ) . This value is not affected by the type of biomass used in the fermentation because it relates to the amount of liquid removed during the distillation from the fermented broth, and the level of alcohol cannot be raised due to physiological limits: a higher concentration of alcohol will inhibit the yeast (Coble et al 1985).…”