Preliminary study of acidic hydrolysis in third generation bioethanol production using green algae

Abstract

In a mission to reduce the world's dependency on non-renewable energy sources, through decades, researches are striving to find the best alternative energy substitutions. Considering the abundance availability of renewable sources, green algae are discovered as one promising candidate of future energy alternative. The aim of this research is to study the bioethanol production from green algae through acid hydrolysis. In this study, the acid hydrolysis was performed by utilizing hydrochloric acid (HCl) at concentration range of 0.5M-2.5M. Further, hydrolysis temperature was also varied at 50, 70 and 90°C. In this stage, a fixed hydrolysis period was set for 30 minutes. As acid pre-treatment is considered in this study as an effective way to convert carbohydrates into fermentable sugars, the sugars produced in this experiment would lead to an excellent grade of bioethanol produced. From the obtained result, green algae show a feasibly potential as the third-generation bioethanol feedstock. The highest theoretical ethanol value obtained by performing 2.5M of HCl at 90°C during retention time of 30 minutes.