Abstract
The chapter begins by introducing the lignocellulosic biomass-to-ethanol biorefinery. It then reviews and discusses the separation methods and technologies in bioalcohol production, product separation and dehydration and removal of inhibitors in fermentation systems, including extractive distillation with ionic liquids and hyper-branched polymers, adsorption with molecular sieve and bio-based adsorbents, extractive fermentation, membrane pervaporation in bioreactors, and vacuum membrane distillation (VMD), etc. Key challenges and opportunities in separation technologies for the future biorefinery are also presented.