Bioethanol has now become a big industry and this industry seems to become much bigger in

the near future. People regard bioethanol as renewable and sustainable new energy source,

although some contraversies such as the rivalry of bioethanol for human food widely exist.

Actually, bioethanol can also be a good source of basic raw materials. In early days, ethylene, the

most important organic chemical raw material, was produced from dehydration of ethanol.

Later, things reversed as petrochemical industry well developed after World War II, when

industrial ethanol was mostly produced mainly via hydration of ethylene. Now that bioethanol

has already become an important fuel blender, we should well expect that bioethanol should

also be new resources for basic organic raw materials, as well as other more valuable fine and

specialty chemicals, instead of merely a fuel blender. Nowadays, countless new bioethanol

companies are setting up every day. It should lead to more research on bioethanol also as a

starting raw chemical material.