Sorghum to Ethanol Research Initiative: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-08-291
The goal of this project was to investigate the feasibility of using sorghum to produce ethanol. The work performed included a detailed examination of the agronomics and composition of a large number of sorghum varieties, laboratory experiments to convert sorghum to ethanol, and economic and life-cycle analyses of the sorghum-to-ethanol process. This work showed that sorghum has a very wide rangeof composition, which depended on the specific sorghum cultivar as well as the growing conditions. The results of laboratory- and pilot-scale experiments indicated that a typical high-biomass sorghum variety performed very similarly to corn stover during the multi-step process required to convert biomass feedstocks to ethanol; yields of ethanol for sorghum were very similar to the corn stoverused as a control in these experiments. Based on multi-year agronomic data and theoretical ethanol production, sorghum can achieve more than 1,300 gallons of ethanol per acre given the correct genetics and environment. In summary, sorghum may be a compelling dedicated bioenergy crop that could help provide a portion of the feedstocks required to produce renewable domestic transportation fuels.
- Research Organization:
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Biomass Program
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC36-08GO28308
- OSTI ID:
- 1029015
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/TP-7A10-52695
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Sorghum to Ethanol Research
Sorghum to Ethanol Research
Technical Report
·
Tue Sep 28 00:00:00 EDT 2010
·
OSTI ID:1053823
Sorghum to Ethanol Research
Technical Report
·
Tue Sep 28 00:00:00 EDT 2010
·
OSTI ID:1053644