Hydrogen evolution from napiergrass by the combination of biological treatment and a Pt-loaded TiO2-photocatalytic reaction

Abstract

Ethanol and pentose were produced from lignocellulosic napiergrass by the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation process (SSF) using hydrolytic enzyme and S. Cerevisiae. After the ethanol was removed, the pentose solution was subjected to photocatalytic hydrogen evolution with Pt-loaded TiO2 under UV-irradiation. This process converted 100 g of napiergrass into 12.3 g of ethanol and 1.76 g of hydrogen whose total combustion energy of (ΔH) was 615 kJ. This was close to the ΔH (639 kJ) of the pentose (13.6 g) and hexose (27.4 g) obtained by the cellulose-saccharification of 100 g of napiergrass. © 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.