How does Brazil make E85 out of sugar cane?
has been used by humans for thousands of years, in part because it is easy to make. Ethanol can be produced from any biological feedstock’s that contain appreciable amounts of sugar or materials that can be converted into sugar such as starch or cellulose. Sugar beets and sugar cane are examples of feedstock’s that contain sugar. Corn contains starch that can relatively easily be converted into sugar. A significant percentage of trees and grasses are made up of cellulose, which can also be converted to sugar, although with more difficulty than required to convert starch. The process is shown in here in its simplest form: Wheat or corn kernels are ground in a hammermill to expose the starch. The ground grain is mixed with water, cooked briefly and enzymes are added to convert the starch to sugar using a chemical reaction called hydrolysis. Yeast is added to ferment the sugars to ethanol. The ethanol is separated from the mixture by distillation and the water is removed from the mixture
