Recent Advancements in Mycodegradation of Lignocellulosic Biomass for Bioethanol Production

Abstract

The past decade has witnessed the prolific growth in bioethanol production from various lignocellulosic biomasses. The dynamic utilization of bioethanol in transportation, electricity, heat and power generation leads to fascination towards continuing research for the improvement in bioethanol productivity. The rigorous four processing steps including pretreatment, saccharification, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation confer the process technology more costly for their sustainable utilization. Therefore, comprehensive research efforts have been undertaken for utilizing various fungi for integrating the difficult processing steps in a single fermentation vessel for improving the productivity of bioethanol. The advent of “omic” and synthetic biology approaches revolutionize the bioethanol production by engineering various conventional and non-conventional yeast systems as well as other groups of fungi. Therefore, this chapter emphasized the role of mycodegradation of lignocellulosic biomass and their conversion into bioethanol. The current molecular implications for engineering various fungi for enhanced productivity of bioethanol in terms of stress tolerance, ethanol tolerance, and wider substrate utilization has been reviewed and simultaneously posits various technological hurdles and future research priorities in the production of second-generation bioethanol.