Low-Temperature Processing of Wheat for Bioethanol Production: Part II. Exploitation of Endogenous Wheat Enzymes

There is still great scope for developing an efficient and inexpensive production process for bioethanol. This article describes the further development of a production process for bioethanol using wheat as a feedstock. Development of the process followed mashing and fermentation experiments using wheat with and without the use of added enzymes. These studies were supported with industrial-scale trials. Results showed that exogenous enzymes are not required when producing bioethanol from wheat and that this process can be scaled up without difficulty. These findings have allowed the further development of a proposed low-cost production process with wheat as the raw material that will be of use in the United Kingdom and other parts of Northern Europe.