Biological conversion of forage sorghum biomass to ethanol by steam explosion pretreatment and simultaneous hydrolysis and fermentation at high solid content

Manzanares, P. and Ballesteros, I. and Negro, M.J. and et al, . (2012) Biological conversion of forage sorghum biomass to ethanol by steam explosion pretreatment and simultaneous hydrolysis and fermentation at high solid content. Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery . pp. 1-10.

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Abstract

In this work, forage sorghum biomass was studied as feedstock for ethanol production by a biological conversion process comprising the steps of hydrothermal steam explosion pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis with commercial enzymes, and fermentation with the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Steam explosion conditions were optimized using a response surface methodology considering temperature (180–230°C) and time (2–10 min). Sugar recovery in the pretreatment and the enzymatic digestibility of the pretreated solid were used to determine the optimum conditions, i.e., 220°C and 7 min. At these conditions, saccharification efficiency attained 89 % of the theoretical and the recovery of xylose in the prehydrolyzate accounted for 35 % of the amount of xylose present in raw material. Then, a simultaneous hydrolysis and fermentation (SSF) process was tested at laboratory scale on the solid fraction of forage sorghum pretreated at optimum condition, in order to evaluate ethanol production. The effect of the enzyme dose and the supplementation with xylanase enzyme of the cellulolytic enzyme cocktail was studied at increasing solid concentration up to 18 % (w/w) in SSF media. Results show good performance of SSF in all consistencies tested with a significant effect of increasing enzyme load in SSF yield and final ethanol concentration. Xylanase supplementation allows increasing solid concentration up to 18 % (w/w) with good SSF performance and final ethanol content of 55 g/l after 4–5 days. Based on this result, about 190 l of ethanol could be obtained from 1 t of untreated forage sorghum, which means a transformation yield of 85 % of the glucose contained in the feedstock.

Item Type: Article
Author Affiliation: 1.Biofuels Unit, Renewable Energy Department-CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain
Subjects: Soil Science and Microbiology
Plant Physiology and Biochemistry > Plant Physiology
Plant Physiology and Biochemistry > Biochemistry
Divisions: Sorghum
Depositing User: Library ICRISAT-InfoSAT
Date Deposited: 26 Apr 2012 14:22
Last Modified: 26 Apr 2012 14:22
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13399-012-0040-8
URI: http://eprints.icrisat.ac.in/id/eprint/4974

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