Ethanol in the Environment: A Critical Review of Its Roles as a Natural Product, a Biofuel, and a Potential Environmental Pollutant

Ethanol has long been known as a natural product of fermentation and an important industrial chemical. Recently it has been recognized as a useful biofuel. However, the overview of the global environmental cycle of ethanol in vegetation, wetlands, the ocean and the atmosphere has so far been neglected. Ethanol is a key product of higher plants under oxygen-deficient conditions, and the major cycling of ethanol is within plants and wetlands. Little naturally produced ethanol reaches the atmosphere. With the increasing use of ethanol as a fuel, higher atmospheric concentrations of ethanol will occur, with some detrimental consequences.