Techno-economic evaluation of integrated first- and second-generation ethanol production from grain and straw.

Integration of first- and second-generation ethanol production can facilitate the introduction of second-generation lignocellulosic ethanol production. Consolidation of the second-generation with the first-generation process can potentially reduce the downstream processing cost for the second-generation process as well as providing the first-generation process with energy. This study presents novel experimental results from integrated first- and second-generation ethanol production from grain and wheat straw in a process development unit. The results were used in techno-economic evaluations to investigate the feasibility of the plant, in which the main co-products were distiller's dried grains with solubles and biogas.