In the U.S., forest and crop residues contain enough glucose and xylose to supply 10 times the country's usage of ethanol and ethylene, but an efficient fermentation scheme is lacking,(1,2,3) To develop a strategy for process design, specific ethanol productivities and yields of Pachysolen tannophilus NRRL Y-2460 and Saccharomyces cerevisiae NRRL Y-2235 were compared. Batch cultures and continu...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND Lignocellulosic biomass, such as corn stover, is a potential raw material for ethanol production. One step in the process of producing ethanol from lignocellulose is enzymatic hydrolysis, which produces fermentable sugars from carbohydrates present in the corn stover in the form of cellulose and hemicellulose. A pretreatment step is crucial to achieve efficient conversi...

The grasses in Thailand were analyzed for the potentiality as the alternative energy crops for cellulosic ethanol production by biological process. The average percentage composition of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin in the samples of 18 types of grasses from various provinces was determined as 31.85-38.51, 31.13-42.61, and 3.10-5.64, respectively. The samples were initially pretreated wi...

The fungus Mucor indicus is able to produce ethanol from xylose as well as dilute-acid lignocellulosic hydrolyzates. The fungus completely assimilated 10 g/L xylose as the sole carbon and energy source within 32 to 65 h at an aeration rate of 0.1 to 1.0 vvm. The highest ethanol yield was 0.16 g/g at 0.1 vvm. Xylitol was formed intermediately with a maximum yield of 0.22 g/g at 0.5 vvm, but disa...

Extraction of ethanol was studied from both synthetic ethanol solution and fermentation broth using supercritical CO2 in an extraction apparatus in ranges of 313 to 333 K and 80 to 160 atmospheres, for varying extraction times. The experimental system consists mainly of four parts: a CO 2 storage system, a high-pressure liquid pump, an extractor and a product collection unit. Samples were analy...

Alfalfa hay is a major crop supporting U.S ruminant livestock industry, particularly dairy. Several cellulosic feedstocks will be needed to meet current ethanol production goals. Alfalfa has considerable potential as a feedstock for production of ethanol and other industrial materials because of its high biomass production, perennial nature, ability to provide its own nitrogen fertilizer, and v...

In recombinant, xylose-fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae, about 30% of the consumed xylose is converted to xylitol. Xylitol production results from a cofactor imbalance, since xylose reductase uses both NADPH and NADH, while xylitol dehydrogenase uses only NAD(+). In this study we increased the ethanol yield and decreased the xylitol yield by lowering the flux through the NADPH-producing pent...

Background Clostridium thermocellum is a cellulolytic anaerobic thermophile that is a promising candidate for consolidated bioprocessing of lignocellulosic biomass into biofuels such as ethanol. It was previously shown that expressing Thermoanaerobacterium saccharolyticum adhA in C. thermocellum increases ethanol yield.In this study, we investigated expression of adhA genes from different organ...

BACKGROUND Dry dilute acid pretreatment at extremely high solids loading of lignocellulose materials demonstrated promising advantages of no waste water generation, less sugar loss, and low steam consumption while maintaining high hydrolysis yield. However, the routine pretreatment reactor without mixing apparatus was found not suitable for dry pretreatment operation because of poor mixing and ...

A major challenge to economically produce ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass is to achieve industrially relevant ethanol titers (>50 g L) to control operating and capital costs for downstream ethanol operations while maintaining high ethanol yields. However, due to reduced fermentation effectiveness at high biomass solids loadings, excessive amounts of enzymes are typically required to obtain...