Bioprocessing Waste Paper to Ethanol & Byproducts

We present the design of a bio-chemical process to produce ethanol from waste paper. We discuss the philosophical advantages of using waste paper in this way and the technical and economic challenges with the process. The process uses non-isothermal, simultaneous saccharification and fermentation to optimize and maximize ethanol yield. The byproducts include carbon dioxide and electricity (from burning the lignin). Also we show the optimization of distillation and molecular sieve purification steps.