Abstract Bioenergy is a critical part of renewable energy solution to today’s energy crisis that threatens world economic growth. Corn ethanol has been growing rapidly in the past few years. Policy-makers and researchers alike are becoming aware that corn ethanol has some serious drawbacks. It adversely impacts food prices and is harsh on soil fertility. Lignocellulosic ethanol on the other han...

BACKGROUND Biomass use for the production of bioethanol or platform chemicals requires efficient breakdown of biomass to fermentable monosaccharides. Lignocellulosic feedstocks often require physicochemical pretreatment before enzymatic hydrolysis can begin. The optimal pretreatment can be different for different feedstocks, and should not lead to biomass destruction or formation of toxic produ...

Enzymatic conversion of oligomeric xylose and insoluble xylan remaining after effective pretreatment offers significant potential to improve xylan-to-xylose yields while minimizing yields of degredation products and fermentation inhibitors. In this work, a commercial enzyme cocktail is demonstrated to convert up to 70 % of xylo-oligomers found in dilute acid-pretreated hydrolyzate liquor at var...

The effect of temperature on accumulation of starch was studied in grain slices of wheat (Triticum aestivum cv SUN9E), taken 15 days after anthesis. As compared with pretreatment of such slices at 25 degrees C, pretreatment at 30 or 35 degrees C reduced the subsequent conversion of sucrose to starch. In contrast to rice (Oryza sativa cv Calrose), pretreatment of wheat soluble starch synthase in...

Irradiation with ultrasound (US) and use of an enzyme (E) as pretreatment techniques were carried out to treat a complex effluent (distillery wastewater). These two techniques have been used alone as well as in combination and the efficacy of these techniques was tested by subjecting the effluent to subsequent aerobic biological oxidation (AO). When used alone, US exposure for 30 min and 2 h yi...

Distillers' grains and corn fiber are the coproducts of the corn dry grind and wet milling industries, respectively. Availability of distillers' grains and corn fiber at the ethanol plant and their high levels of lignocellulosic material make these coproducts attractive feedstocks for conversion to ethanol. In this study, dilute sulfuric acid hydrolysis of these coproducts was investigated in a...

BACKGROUND Wheat straw used for bioethanol production varies in enzymatic digestibility according to chemical structure and composition of cell walls and tissues. In this work, the two biologically different wheat straw organs, leaves and stems, are described together with the effects of hydrothermal pretreatment on chemical composition, tissue structure, enzyme adhesion and digestion. To highl...