Bioethanol Production From Non-Acid Pretreated Woody Biomass By Using Enzymatic Reaction

Chemical Engineering

Lignocellulose biomass, such as wood and agricultural residues, is considered a good candidate for bioethanol production. The present study was undertaken to investigate the effect of mechanochemical pretreatment and hydrothermal pretreatment, on chemical composition of sawdust samples from hardwood and softwood and subsequent bioethanol production applying pre-enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation. The best condition for hydrothermal treatment gave the higher cellulose content from 52.5% to 84.9% and lesser lignin content from 26% to 3% than the other pretreatment conditions. Liberation of cellulose was confirmed by X-ray Diffraction (XRD).The pretreated sawdust was hydrolysed with inoculum containing crude enzymes from Trichoderma and Aspergillus niger. After enzymatic hydrolysis, the maximum glucose yield was 7.4% and 6% by inoculum containing crude enzymes from Trichoderma and Aspergillus niger. The total solid conversion were 30% for sawdust sample from softwood hydrolysed with inoculum containing crude enzyme from Trichoderma of 52 FPU/ml and 34% for sawdust sample from softwood hydrolyzed with crude enzyme from Aspergillus niger of 45 FPU/ml. From the fermentation studies, the sawdust sample from softwood gave 4% of crude ethanol by weight using inoculum containing crude enzyme from Trichoderma and 3% by using inoculum containing crude enzyme from Aspergillus niger. The crude ethanol was characterized and confirmed by FTIR spectra.

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