Effect of Different Wet Oxidation Pretreatment Conditions on Ethanol Fermentation from Corn Stover

Abstract

Corn stover is an abundant raw material for fuel ethanol production. Finding out the appropriate process for ethanol production will be possible to achieve industrilization. Three different wet oxidation pretreatment conditions were adopted to produce ethanol from corn stover by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF). Recovery of cellulose and hemicellulose, enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose and ethanol yield were studied under the three conditions. The results showed that about 90% of cellulose was remained in the solid cake and most of hemicellulose and lignin were solubilized and degraded under three pretreatment conditions. Under the best condition (195°C, 15min, Na2CO3 2g/L, O2 12bar), the recovery of cellulose was 95.87%. After 142 h of SSF, ethanol yield of 79.0 % of the theoretical and corresponding ethanol concentration of 25.0g/L and volumetric productivity of 0.176gL-1h-1 were obtained by baker’ yeast. The values were higer than those under other pretreatment conditions. No obvious inhibition effect occurred during SSF.