Enzymatic hydrolysis condition of pretreated corncob by oxalic acid to improve ethanol production

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the features of bioethanol fermentation of corncob biomass after oxalic acid pretreatment as well as enzymatic hydrolysis. The enzymatic hydrolysis was performed with Accellerase 1000 and the highest yield of monomeric sugars (64.8 g/l) was obtained at 50°C and pH 4.5 for 96 hrs hydrolysis period. For the ethanol fermentation the monomeric sugars obtained from pretreated corncob were subjected to the biological treatment using Pichia stipitis CBS 6054. It was turned out that ethanol production from oxalic acid pretreated corncob was the most feasible at 10-14% of biomass loading as well as 15 FPU enzyme amount. Under these fermentation condition, the ethanol yield was approached to 0.47 after 24 hrs fermentation period, which was corresponded to 92.2% of conversion rate.