Abstract
Phragmites is the tallest energy crop found as an invasive species worldwide and considered as waste biomass. The present study evaluated the potential of the aquatic biomass Phragmites karka grown from two different lakes as feedstock for biofuel production. A comparative study of biomass was conducted from Chilika Lake and Loktak Lake, India. The methodology involves dilute acid, sono-assisted alkali pretreatment, and hydrolyzed biomass with commercial cellulase. SEM, XRD, and FTIR analysis were performed for the biomass physicochemical studies and confirmed that alterations occurred in the biomass structure, assisting the hydrolysis process. The enzymatic hydrolysis result showed that the highest of reducing sugar yield of 79% was obtained from biomass loading of 10% and 1% w/v alkali with a sonication frequency of 20 kHz for 25 min. Acid pretreatment released maximal reducing sugar yield of 73% attained from biomass loading of 20% and 0.5% w/v acid. Composition analysis of biomass showed that cellulose content increased from 36% to 46%. Sono-assisted alkali pretreatment solubilized 40% of lignin content compared to untreated biomass. Final ethanol recovery from the biomass is 78% fermentation efficiency from glucose. The data indicate that exploiting tall reed grass as a bioenergy raw material can be a viable approach for sustainable utilization of invasive grass/waste biomass for biorefineries, which helps control invasive weeds and management of waste.
Highlights
Worldwide energy demand is increasing, and its soaring price leads to looking for an alternative sustainable solution for fossil fuels
While sonication-assisted alkali pretreatment of Chilika Lake biomass showed, cellulosic content increased from 34.7% to 40%, hemicellulose reduction to 10.8%, and lignin reduced to 30%
The present study indicates that sonicationassisted alkali pretreatment is a better approach for obtaining sugars for biofuel conversion
Summary
Worldwide energy demand is increasing, and its soaring price leads to looking for an alternative sustainable solution for fossil fuels. Phumdis of Loktak and Chilika Lake found abundant availability of aquatic invasive tall reed grass (Phragmites karka) Local people removed this biomass due to uncontrollable growth in the lake and dumping on the shore of the lake. Fermentation studies for ethanol conversion of hydrolysate obtained from the biomass were performed using wild yeast cells, and sugar consumption and ethanol production were analyzed from the samples collected. The chemical composition of tall reed grass of pretreated and untreated samples was performed to know the component such as cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin as per NREL analytical protocol (Sluiter et al, 2011). Samples are collected for sugar estimation from 0 h to 48 h, centrifuged, and the supernatant was used for evaluation of glucose by DNS assay, according to Miller (1959).The efficiency of enzymatic hydrolysis was calculated by the equation reported by Huang et al (2019). Samples were collected and analyzed for sugar depletion and ethanol concentration
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