Starch from corn is currently fermented to make ethanol, but this has met with little success outside of farm communities because of the limited supply, and the loss of profit when transporting ethanol far from its source.

The problem is that plants are composed of 10% starch at most, and that 90% of the plant fiber is thrown away. Now there are methods to break down cellulose itself into fermentable sugars, increasing the supply of ethanol from corn crops up to 10 times, and diversifying the potential feedstocks. Now grasses, softwood lumber, sawdust, and even recycled cardboard can be made into automotive fuel.

Whole Plant Conversion to Automotive Ethanol

In an equally significant breakthrough Japanese researchers have developed a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) membrane that can remove excess water from fermented ethanol by osmosis. This process uses gravity pressure (head) and therefore very little energy. In contrast the traditional method of removing water from ethanol, distillation, requires boiling the mixture repeatedly to vaporize and condense the ethanol out of the mixture. This was especially wasteful, usually consuming more energy to boil the water than was returned as alcohol fuel.

Polyvinyl Alcohol Membrane to remove excess water from ethanol