The ever increasing energy crisis and the environmental deterioration have forced people to speed up the pace of research for fuel ethanol. In the past decades,various technologies of yeast immobilization have been employed for fuel ethanol production and demonstrated their great potential with advantages of repeated application,continuous operation and short fermentation period. In this paper,the research advances in this area was reviewed,which covered methods of immobilization,effects of immobilization on yeast cells,corresponding bioreactors and fermentation technologies. Finally,further research directions of the area were proposed.
