Arundo donax (ADX) in bioethanol production

Giant reed (Arundo donax) will be mainly used in the green energy industries. The most serious
industrial demand on ADX emerged by second generation bioethanol producers. Bioethanol
will be used as fuel in engines directly or blended with gasoline or converted to Ethyl Tertiary
Butyl Ether (ETBE) to be used as a fuel additive.
Second generation bioethanol production utilizes plants with a cellulose content of about 35-
39%, such as ADX, as well. However, ADX is a declared source of bioethanol in the technology
used by Beta Renewables only, which is called the Proesa™ process. It was developed by
Biochemtex and Novozymes and is used exclusively in Beta Renewables plants. Beta
Renewables has an installed capacity of bioethanol production in Europe totalling in over 100
million litres (~ 27 million gallons) yearly. This comprises two production sites in Italy:
a) Cresentino near Milan (biofuelstp.eupresentations=cresentino-presentation.pdf)
b) in Porto Marghera (www.cometha.eu) within the COMETHA project.
Since 2013, these are the most modern 2nd generation bioethanol production capacities in
Europe (BioChemtex 2013). The feedstock they source is a mixture of wheat and rice straw,
as well as ADX. Their yearly need of biomass reaches ca. 350,000 metric tons.

Beta Renewables and BioChemtex plants have also been in construction since 2014 in
Slovakia (Strážske) and Brazil (São Miguel dos Campos). There are plants envisioned to be
built in the USA in North Carolina, California, respectively, and in China (in Fuyang in Anhui
province) (http://biofuelstp.eu/cellulosic-ethanol.html#crescentino). As these capacities
shall use enzymes fromNovozymes and yeast from Leaf Technologies, they are potentially
able to process also Giant reed, assuming there was enough feedstock of that. However,
so far, no actual use of ADX is declared in these plants.

In the table below one can view bioethanol production data of different agricultural crops
including also Giant reed. These figures make it clear that Giant reed’s bioethanol production
capacity based on the average biomass yield, however its capacity based on the production
volume per hectare is outstanding compared to the other crops. Additionally, ADX helps
mitigate the pressure on forest management to produce cellulosic feedstock for the
bioethanol industry.
Bioethanol production abilities select of agricultural crops
Crop Yield Efficiency of Output
processing
(metric dry (%) Litres/ Litres / ha
ton/ha) metric dry ton
Sugar beet 38.0 35 95 4300
Wheat 3.5 24 356 1200
Corn 4.5 32 387 2100
Potato 10.3 82 110 3050
Sugar cane 57.0 31 67 5300
Giant reed 25-80 25 250 6250 - 20000
(Arundo donax)
Source: http://www.emergia.hu/