Enrique Javier Carvajal Barriga, Cristina Guaman-Burneo, Patricia Portero Barahona, Edgar Salas, Carolina Tufino, Bernardo Bastidas

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter http://dx. doi. org/10.5772/51951

1. Introduction

Ecuador is located between 1°N and 5°S on the west coast of South America. Although relatively small in size, mainland Ecuador can be subdivided nevertheless into three different and quite distinctive climatic regions: the Pacific coastal plain, the Andean highlands and the Amazon basin. In addition, Ecuador possesses a fourth region, namely the Galapagos Islands.

Climatically, the Pacific coastal plain is hot all year, with a rainy season between December and May. In the Andean highlands, the climate is markedly cooler, varying according to altitude. In contrast, the Amazon basin is hot, humid and wet all year round, while the Galapagos Islands are dry, with an annual average temperature of 25° C (77° F).

These characteristics provide Ecuador with a huge potential to develop second generation ethanol from industrial biomass, to replace a portion of the gasoline needed and, thus, the reduction of CO2 emissions. The climatic conditions as well as the photoperiods and rainfall along the year make this country an excellent candidate to develop second generation biofuels technology from biomass.

Tropical cultures such as bananas, oil palm, sugar cane, and others that are produced mainly in the coastal region of the country generates each year enough cellulose to produce almost all the ethanol the country needs. The current situation in terms of the use of these lignocellulosic materials is still in its very beginning and much work is to be developed to establish a market for the lignocellulosic residues.

Additionally, microbial biodiversity and its research is becoming one important issue in terms of the development of innovative technologies based on biotechnology, pointing out

© 2013 Barriga et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

the search for novel genes and metabolic abilities especially in wild yeasts studied in natural environments all around the country. Local researchers are devoted to the metabolic engineering of yeasts to improve the fermentation yields.

In this chapter we report some results from the or Sustainable Resources for Ethanol (RESETA) project, from the quantification and characterization of the most important cultures in Ecuador, its residues and characteristics, to the development of genetic engineered yeasts and the design and construction of a biorefinery at pilot scale.

The above mentioned project involves one of the most important researches the Ecuadorian Government has founded since 2008. The advances and results of this project can be taken as models for other tropical countries in the world.

Finally, we present the economic viability analysis of second generation ethanol projects in large scale in Ecuador, looking forward the industrial production of ethanol, biogas, biofertilizers and renewable chemicals in biorefineries in Ecuador.