Production of ethanol from Jerusalem artichoke by mycelial pellets

Chao Zhang,Huixue Ren,Hongqi Yang,Daoji Wu

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-55117-7

Chao Zhang, Huixue Ren + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55117-7

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Abstract

Mycelial pellets formed by Aspergillus niger A-15 were used to immobilize the ethanol producing yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae C-15. The operation parameters, such as agitation speed, temperature and mixed proportion of strains were studied. The optimal adsorption 66.9% was obtained when speed was 80r/min, temperature was 40 °C and mixed proportion(mycelial pellets: yeasts) was 1:10. With Jerusalem artichoke flour as substrate, 12.8% (V/V) of ethanol was obtained after 48 h by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation using mycelial pellets. And mycelial pellets could tolerate 19% (volume fraction) ethanol. The above results proved that this new technology was feasible, and it had the advantages of higher ethanol yield, long service life, repeated use, easy operation and lower cost in producing ethanol.

Highlights

Corn is the major feedstock for the fuel ethanol production in China
As saccharification was required before fermentation, mycelial pellets formed by A. niger A-15 were used to immobilize the ethanol producing yeast S. cerevisiae C-15
The process diagram of the whole experiment is shown in Fig. 1.To determine how different temperatures affected the adsorption rate of yeast, the pellets of A. niger A-15 were conducted in 500 ml flask containing 100 mL yeast suspension

Summary

Introduction

Corn is the major feedstock for the fuel ethanol production in China. this process consumes a large amount of corn, which poses a threat to national food security[1,2,3,4,5]. There are no reports of simultaneous saccharification and fermentation which are combined with immobilize carrier to producing ethanol. These two techniques are generally used separately, and there are no relevant reports about using immobilized pellets as fermenting microbe. This is the first time that this concept and technology are adopted to combine carrier with fermenting microbe in ethanol production. As saccharification was required before fermentation, mycelial pellets formed by A. niger A-15 were used to immobilize the ethanol producing yeast S. cerevisiae C-15. Ethanol was produced by mycelial pellets through simultaneous saccharification and fermentation, to simplify the process and improve the ethanol tolerance and ethanol yield of yeast

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Conclusion