Biomethanol Conversion from Sugar Beet Pulp

Non-renewable fossil fuels will deplete one day. To meet the future energy demand, we have to turn to renewable energy including solar energy, wind energy, bioenergy, hydroelectricity, wave energy, tidal power and geothermal energy. Providing the only renewable alternative for liquid transportation fuel, bioenergy comes directly from renewable biomass and exists as the products of methane, methanol, ethanol and other biofuels. Methanol from biomass is an important bioenergy that can be used as the fuel for a direct alcohol fuel cell or as a raw material for biodiesel. This book is based on Q. Wang’s PhD research which has been well documented by the media. In the book, methanol conversion from sugar beet pulp with pectin methyl esterase was studied. The goal is to create bioreactors that can be retrofitted onto existing sugar processing plants in such a way that the low value beet pulp can be converted to valuable bioenergy in an economically feasible way. The research results can also be used as a reference for methanol production from other pectin abundant agricultural byproducts such as pulps from fruit processing. Quanzeng Wang is a PhD candidate engaged in research of bioenergy (University of Maryland, College Park) and noninvasive medical diagnostics (FDA contract research). Before his PhD study, he served as a research scientist and lab manager in the National Laboratory of Flame-Retarded Materials in Beijing, China.