Contrary to the conversion of sweet juice and that of starch to ethanol, which are
mature technologies, the modern lignocellulose-to-ethanol process is still in the pilot
and demonstration stages. A few facilities exist: the U.S. National Renewable Energy
Laboratory has built a pilot plant based on the SSCF method capable of processing
one ton of dry material per day (DOE 2000); Iogen Corporation (Canada) in 2003 built
a demonstration plant with an annual production of 320,000 liters of ethanol, using
wheat straw as feedstock and a sequential steam explosion prehydrolysis (cellulose
production), enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose and co-fermentation of xylose and glucose;
in 2004, a Swedish company ETEK developed a pilot plant capable of producing
150,000 liters of ethanol per year using soft wood as feedstock (Lindstedt 2003).