Bioethanol from Arthrospira platensis biomass using a combined pretreatment

Abstract

With the aim to reduce the reliance on gasoline by supporting efficient bioethanol production to meet the biofuel goal of 46 % in the transportation sector by 2050, the present study proposes a combined pretreatment of microwave-assisted acid hydrolysis for bioethanol production, which was applied to commercially-produced microalgal biomass of Arthrospira platensis. The Separated Hydrolysis and Fermentation (SHF) method was applied to prevent sugar loss and produce a higher bioethanol yield. After examining the effect of acid concentrations (0, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 M) and hydrolysis duration (30, 60, 90, 120, and 180 min) on the fermentable sugars, it was discovered that both operation parameters had a major impact on the synthesis of monosaccharides. With a 0.3 M H2SO4 concentration and a 90-minute hydrolysis time at 100 °C, the maximum concentration of fermentable sugars of 11.60 g/L was obtained. Regarding the fermentable sugar yield, the suggested combined pretreatment (78.4 %) outperforms the literature-reported single pretreatment of acid hydrolysis (55 %), under comparable operating settings. After 96 h of anaerobic fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the hydrolysate of the fermentable sugars produced 0.06 g ethanol/g biomass, corresponding to 0.35 g ethanol/g total carbohydrates in Arthrospira platensis.