Cellulosic ethanol booms despite unproven business models

Scientists are working on using lignocellulosic ethanol as fuel instead of the biodiesels such as food-based ethanol and starch-ethanol due to their increasing demand as food. Lignocellulosic ethanol plants will be setup in places such as Karlsruhe, Germany. Thermochemical methods, acid hydrolysis and enzymatic hydrolysis are all means of making ethanol from lignocellulose. But although enzymatic hydrolysis dominates the industry, one of its challenges is that the enzymes must be tailored to the feedstock.