Bioethanol produced by alcoholic fermentation from sucrose, starch or lignocellulosic biomass is widely used as solvent and chemical feedstock in various industries.
Recently, it has received special attention as the most promising biofuel from renewable resources (Sivakumar et al., 2010).
Taking into account overall economics and energy consumption sugar crops are advantageous raw material for ethanol fermentation in comparison to lignocelluloses and starch crops, because they generally have a high content of readily fermentable sugars. Sugar beet is a particularly promising energy crop in the European Union (EU). Owing to the surplus of sugar on the World Market, the European Union decided to reduce economic support for refined sugar by about a third. In contrast to the decreasing sugar production in EU, the commercial production of sugar crop-derived biofuels might increase over the following years, due to ongoing relevant EU policy changes (Panagiotopoulos et al., 2010).
Previous study of a combined sugar–ethanol plant showed increased profitability and fuel efficiency in the sugar beet processing by using by-products for ethanol production (Krajnc et al., 2007). Countries with a significant agricultural-based economy, such as Serbia, may apply the current technologies for fuel ethanol fermentation, which would have a positive effect on socio-economic development and local economy.