Other Hydrolysis Technologies

The Biomass Program sees enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose as the most economically promising alternative for the sugar platform. There are other alternatives, however. Concentrated acid hydrolysis and dilute acid hydrolysis, for example, have long industrial histories. This history is in fact one reason the Biomass Program chose to focus on enzymatic hydrolysis, assessing that the older technologies are already nearly fully developed with little room for further cost savings. Nonetheless the other technologies are available now and most current cellulosic ethanol commercialization efforts use one or the other.