Feedstock

There are three major bio-based fuel ethanol feedstocks used in China: grain-based, and non-grain-based in cellulosic and non-cellulosic form. Of these, the grain-based feedstock accounts for more than 86% of the total bio-based fuel ethanol production, while non-grain-based accounted for 14%, 11% for non-cellulosic and 3% for cellulosic.

Corn is the most popular grain-based feedstock for fuel ethanol production in China. In 2017, the Chinese government wanted to eliminate a surfeit of corn in the country and mandated the use of E10 (10% v/v of denatured fuel ethanol blends with 90% v/v of conventional fuel ethanol). In 2020, there was 87% of bio-based fuel ethanol was produced from corn. Another popular grain-based feedstock is wheat.

In China, the non-grain-based feedstock for fu