biomass (1 Viewer)

[Steven12]

if there was a question asking about say, assessing the suitability of biomass as an alternative source of energy and chemical.

should i talk about cellulose or simply ethanol?

I know i read somewhere about how cellulose can be broken down into glucose which can be fermentated to ethanol,(then ethene)

but should i just skip that and simply talk about ethanol(sugar canes)

any ideas?

 

[randhi]

i would talk about cellulose, that would be my main area of topic and then u can talk about ethanol later on.

 

[tennille]

I agree. In the Conquering Chemistry textbook, cellulose is known to be biomass so just to be safe, I'd talk about that.

 

[tennille]

I agree. In the Conquering Chemistry textbook, cellulose is known to be biomass so just to be safe, I'd talk about that. then maybe talk about ethanol. Depends how much you have to write. If its only like a 3 question mark then only cellulose. If more, then mention ethanol in addition to cellulose.

 

[tina_goes_doo]

I was told by my tutor that at the moment we havn't found an efficient way to break cellulose down into its glucose units. Is this true?

 

[xiao1985]

I was told by my tutor that at the moment we havn't found an efficient way to break cellulose down into its glucose units. Is this true?

certainly less efficient than the extraction of petroluem... or else cellulose would have replaced petroluem already....

 

[tina_goes_doo]

Actually i should've rephrased that. She said we can't break cellulose down into glucose at all. Zilch. Nada. Nope glucose for you!

 

[sHin]

BIOMASS: Plant material, vegetation, or agricultural waste used as a fuel or energy source.

Since the use of cellulose is not viable at the moment, I'd concentrate on Ethanol.

 

[tennille]

if you are assessing something, ur making a value of it. So, it might be good to mention how you can't break the cellulose into glucose units despite it having the basic carbon chain for fuel- so clearly that wouldn't be of any use. Then mention ethanol, the +ves and the -ves and mention whether it is good enough. eg. it is a renewable source but where do we dispose of the fermentation products, etc.

 

[Tommy_Lamp]

Well the whole thing with cellulose is that if we can find a way to break it down into short hydro-carbon chains, e.g. 4 or 3 carbons, then we would have an unlimited source of fuel, but as it stands no method exists.

sHin, the question states: assess the suitability of biomass as an alternative source of energy.

Cellulose is good for this as you can mention its potential as a source of energy, but also its limitations (namely we cant use it yet(. You can then mention ethanol aswell.