The new approach provides a new way for industrialized production of cellulosic ethanol with high efficiency and low cost.
A research team led by Prof. MA Longlong from the Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion (GIEC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) developed a one-pot way for direct cellulose hydrogenolysis into ethanol using graphene layers encapsulated nickel (Ni@C) catalysts with the aid of phosphoric acid (H3PO4) in water.
Bio-ethanol, widely applicable in chemical and medical industries, especially in fuel as gasoline additive, may become a key player as it can be directly used as a drop-in bio-fuel in gasoline.
The traditional way for ethanol preparation is dependent on enzymatic hydrolysis-fermentation, with disadvantages of long production cycle, expensive enzyme cost and easy deactivation by poisoning.
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