Bioethanol fuel comes from a plant’s sugar-rich products – like sugar cane or corn. Cellulosic ethanol is made from what’s left, the lignocellulosic biomass.

Lignocellulose can come from biomass such as wheat straw, corn stover, municipal waste, or energy crops. First, these by-products are broken down into a pulp. Enzymes are then added, turning cellulose in the biomass into sugar which can then be fermented into cellulosic ethanol. This conversion process is called lignocellulosic hydrolysis.

Cellulosic ethanol production is immensely cost-effective and environmentally-friendly, but not as efficient as traditional corn-based ethanol production because it requires more processing to make sugars available to be concentrated into ethanol fuel. Enzymes like Novozymes Cellic® work to optimise the lignocellulosic hydrolysis process to make cellulosic ethanol plants more efficient.