Title: Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation of woody stem Prosopis juliflora by Zymomonas mobilis for the production of cellulosic ethanol

Authors: S. Sivarathnakumar; G. Baskar; R. Praveenkumar; B. Bharathiraja

Addresses: Faculty of Bioengineering, Department of Biotechnology, Sathyabama University, Chennai, India; Department of Biotechnology, Arunai Engineering College, Tiruvannamalai, India ' Department of Biotechnology, St. Joseph's College of Engineering, Chennai, India ' Department of Biotechnology, Arunai Engineering College, Tiruvannamalai, India ' Department of Chemical Engineering, Vel Tech High Tech Dr. Rangarajan, Dr. Sakuntala Engineering College, Chennai, India

Abstract: Pre-treatment of lignocellulosic biomass is found to be a pivotal task in the production of biofuels. In this study, woody stem Prosopis juliflora initially was subjected to auto hydrolysis followed by nitric acid treatment (3%(v/v)) and sonication. Further a combination of auto hydrolysis coupled with nitric acid treatment (3%(v/v)) followed by sonication was carried out. The outcome of these two main processes was to ascertain the maximum production of cellulose and hemicelluloses from lignocellulosic biomass and use it for simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) with commercially available enzyme and gram negative bacteria Zymomonas mobilis in the production of cellulosic ethanol. The process parameters such as pH, temperature, substrate concentration and inoculum volume in the production of cellulosic ethanol were investigated. The maximum bioethanol concentration produced by fermentation of woody stem Prosopis juliflora using Zymomonas mobilis was found to be 16.40 g/l.

Keywords: Prosopis juliflora; Zymomonas mobilis; Tricoderma reesei; simultaneous saccharification and fermentation; SSF; lignocellulosic biomass.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMPT.2017.084968

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology, 2017 Vol.55 No.1/2/3, pp.236 - 253

Received: 26 May 2016
Accepted: 03 Jan 2017
Published online: 09 Jul 2017 *

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