Our current civilization is highly dependent on petroleum based fuels, chemicals, and materials. However, the fear of depletion of petroleum and related environmental issues has stimulated research on biorefineries that convert sustainable biomass into different types of energy and materials within one industrial platform. The bioethanol industry is one such biorefinery that produces ethanol and animal feed from feedstocks such as sugarcane or corn. Corn ethanol, which is the leading global source of bio-based ethanol, is restricted by corn food prices which results in economical and ecological disadvantages of the current processes. One method to improve this process is to produce higher value material from corn ethanol byproducts, using an integrated biorefinery platform. Dried distillers' grains (DDG) are a major byproduct from the corn ethanol industry using the dry grind process, which is usually sold as animal feed. DDG consists of about 30% protein, 20% hemicelluloses, 15% cellulose, 5% starch, and 10% crude fat. Since the major digestible components of animal feed are protein, starch, and fat, hemicelluloses and cellulose in the DDG are underutilized, thus making them a significant resource for renewable bioproducts.
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