Sweet Sorghum for Bioethanol Production: Scope, Technology, and Economics

Abstract The major fuels used for transportation are obtained from nonrenewable resources, such as crude oil. One alternative to these nonrenewable fuels is bioethanol. The sweet sorghum is a crop rich in sugars that can be exploited for ethanol production. From its stalks, a juice can be obtained, which contains high content of fermentable sugars that can be directly converted into ethanol, whereas the cellulose and hemicellulose rich bagasse needs to be pretreated before being fermented to ethanol. Sweet sorghum also contains starch in its grains (panicle), which is generally enzymatically hydrolyzed to glucose before its conversion into ethanol. Ethanol production processes from various parts of sweet sorghum, its technoeconomic feasibility and real-time applications are discussed in detail in the upcoming sections. Different biotechnology approaches for improving sorghum fermentation, such as biotechnology tools to improve ethanol yield from sorghum grains, solid state fermentation, simultaneous saccharification, and fermentation technology, use of mixed culture, and immobilized techniques, in bioethanol production from sweet sorghum are discussed in this chapter.