How Does Mascoma’s Cellulosic Ethanol Process Work?
During a conference call today, I asked Chairman and CEO of Mascoma Bruce Jamerson how their process differs from standard biochemical production processes. He described it like this: Cellulosic ethanol feedstocks are usually broken down by some kind of pre-treatment, like a mild acid bath. At that point, the cellulose (which is basically a chain of glucose sugar molecules) is clipped apart into C5 and C6 sugars by enzymes. Those sugars are then fermented into ethanol by other microbes. Each of these steps take time, and money. The first step after pre-treatment, called hydrolysis, typically requires purchasing expensive enzymes. The best way to reduce the cost and throughput time would be to eliminate some of these steps. Mascoma’s proprietary microorganims do all of the post pre-treatment steps at once, without the need for separate batches. The advantage of this is decreased throughput time, lower capital cost, and higher yields. The other big difference about Mascoma is their pretr
