https://doi.org/10.15255/KUI.2017.048
Published: Kem. Ind. 67 (7-8) (2018) 297–308
Paper reference number: KUI-48/2017
Paper type: Original scientific paper
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Production of Bioethanol from Corn Cobs

M. Ivančić Šantek, I. Zvonar, S. Beluhan and B. Šantek

Abstract

Bioethanol was produced from cellulase-hydrolysed pretreated corn cobs by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) with yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The effect of the duration of the corn cob prehydrolysis step on ethanol yield by SSF process was studied and compared to the conventional SSF process. Two mixtures of commercially available enzyme preparations were used for biomass hydrolysis; the first contained Celluclast 1.5L (Sigma) and ß-glucosidase (Carl Roth), and the second mixture contained Celluclast 1.5L (Sigma) and Viscozyme L (Sigma). Two days of prehydrolysis had a positive effect on ethanol yield, while the yield decreased with longer prehydrolysis. The highest ethanol concentration of 41.24 g dm^–3 was obtained by SSF process with two days of prehydrolysis, which corresponded to 63.15 % of the theoretical yield based on untreated corn cobs. However, the highest total productivity of 0.36 g dm^–3 h^–1 was observed in conventional SSF process using enzyme mixture containing Celluclast 1.5L (Sigma) and Viscozyme L (Sigma). Concentration of ethanol was 36.6 g dm^–3 which corresponded to 56.02 % of the theoretical yield based on untreated corn cobs.

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Keywords

corn cobs, bioethanol, cellulases, simulatneous saccharification and fermentation, prehydrolysis