The diagram illustrates the process of manufacturing ethanol, a type of biofuel.
Overall, the production of ethanol is a cyclical process that consists of harvesting plants, extracting cellulose, converting it into sugars, adding microbes to create ethanol, and carbon dioxide produced when the ethanol is burned cycling back to plants during photosynthesis.
The process begins with plants and trees using sunlight and carbon dioxide as energy sources for growth. Once harvested, they undergo a preprocessing stage, where a crushing machine breaks them down into small pieces to facilitate further processing. These small pieces are then converted into cellulose, which is chemically processed to obtain sugars. From there, microbes are added to the sugars to convert them into ethanol.
When ethanol is burned as fuel in various vehicles, such as cars, trucks, and airplanes, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. However, this carbon dioxide is reabsorbed by plants during photosynthesis, and the process begins again.