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Lignocellulosic biomass refers to plant biomass that is composed of cellulose and hemicellulose, and lignin. The carbohydrate polymers (cellulose and hemicelluloses) are tightly bound to the lignin, by hydrogen and covalent bonds. Biomass comes in many different types, which may be grouped into four main categories: wood residues, including sawmill and paper mill discards, municipal paper waste, agricultural residues, including corn stover (stalks and straw) and sugarcane bagasse, and dedicated energy crops, which are mostly composed of tall, woody grasses.
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Fermentation of lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol is an attractive candidate as a source of renewable, alternative energy to our rapidly depleting stores of fossil fuels. Biomass is a carbon neutral source of energy, since it comes from dead plants, which means that the combustion of ethanol produced from lignocelluloses will produce no net carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere. Also, biomass is readily available, and the fermentation of lignocelluloses provides an attractive way to dispose of many industrial and agricultural waste products. Finally, lignocellulosic biomass is a very renewable resource. Many of the dedicated energy crops can provide high energy biomass, which may be harvested multiple times each year.
|This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lignocellulosic_biomass". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.|