Faced with the prospect of depletion of non-renewable sources of fossil fuels and concerns about the emission of substances that compromise the environment, biofuels, and especially bioethanol, have attracted the attention of researchers, companies and governments. Specifically, the second generation of bioethanol has critical stages in the production process which have been limiting for companies to achieve production on a commercial scale. Although research has sought to overcome such constraints by focusing on technological challenges, it has been recognized that the greater or lesser absorption capacity of technological innovations is related to the business model used. The purpose of this article was to analyze the business models used by Brazilian companies that have achieved commercial scale production of second generation bioethanol, studying their business models as commercial viability instruments of technologies, looking to subsidize companies of this segment in formulating their policies to reach commercial scale. The research was carried out through a methodology based on the content analysis technique, which provided the following categories that served as the basis for the analysis of the business models: company focus, raw material, costs, certification, technology and production. Among the six major second-generation commercial ethanol plants in the world - GranBio, Raízen, Poet-DSM, BetaRenewables, Abengoa (plant bought by Synata Bio) and DuPont - two are Brazilian: GranBio and Raízen, which mainly use sugar cane bagasse and straw as raw material. The study demonstrated that both companies have competitive advantages that are equivalent in most of the categories studied, albeit GranBio’s business model performs better in some other categories due to the strategic partnerships it has established with some of the main companies in the segment, thus, better exploring the benefits of the open innovation environment that characterizes the competitive arena.

面对化石燃料不可再生资源枯竭的前景以及对危害环境的物质排放的担忧，生物燃料，尤其是生物乙醇引起了研究人员，公司和政府的关注。具体而言，第二代生物乙醇在生产过程中具有关键阶段，这已成为公司实现商业规模生产的限制。尽管研究试图通过专注于技术挑战来克服这些限制，但是已经认识到，技术创新的吸收能力或多或少与所使用的商业模式有关。本文的目的是分析已实现商业规模生产第二代生物乙醇的巴西公司使用的商业模式，研究其作为技术的商业可行性工具的商业模式，以期在制定其实现商业规模的政策时对这一领域的公司进行补贴。该研究是通过基于内容分析技术的方法进行的，该方法提供了以下类别作为业务模型分析的基础：公司重点，原材料，成本，认证，技术和生产。世界上六大主要的第二代商业乙醇工厂-GranBio，Raízen，Poet-DSM，BetaRenewables，Abengoa（由Synata Bio购买的工厂）和杜邦-两个是巴西人：GranBio和Raízen，主要使用甘蔗渣和秸秆为原料。