Lignocellulosic ethanol production: Evaluation of new approaches, cell immobilization and reactor configurations

Abstract

The environmentally-friendly, economically-viable production of ethanol from cellulosic biomass remains a major contemporary challenge. Much work has been done on the disruption of cellulosic biomass structure, the production of enzymes for the conversion of cellulose and hemicellulose into simple sugars that can be fermented by bacteria or yeast, and the metabolic engineering of ethanol-producing microbes. The results of these studies have enabled the transition from laboratory to industrial scale of cellulosic ethanol production. Notably, however, current processes use free microbial cells in batch reactors. This review highlights the advantages of using immobilized and co-immobilized cells together with continuous bioreactor configurations. These developments have the potential to improve both the yield and the green credentials of cellulosic ethanol production in modern industrial settings.

Persea Americana Agro-Industrial Waste Biorefinery for Sustainable High-Value-Added Products

“…In the biorefinery approach, biomass conversion into biofuels and biochemicals represents a promising and valuable way to mitigate global warming and diversifying energy sources [92]. In that sense, cellulosic biomass from the avocado seed and peel can be used for bioethanol production through fermentation (Figure 3) [93,94]. Woldu et al employed powdered avocado seed hydrolysate wastes for producing bioethanol.…”

Anionic structural effect on the dissolution of arabinoxylan-rich hemicellulose in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium carboxylate-based ionic liquids

“…1 Hemicellulose, which is mainly composed of xylose, arabinose, galactose, glucose, mannose, uronic acid, etc., 2 is an important heterogeneous polysaccharide in plant cell walls and contributes approximately 20-40% to the whole plant cell wall. 1,3,4 Hemicellulose can be successfully conversed into biofuels, 5,6 materials, 7,8 chemicals, 9,10 and functional food ingredients. 11,12 However, hemicellulose does not dissolve in many conventional solvents.…”

Boosting Ethanol Productivity of Zymomonas mobilis 8b in Enzymatic Hydrolysate of Dilute Acid and Ammonia Pretreated Corn Stover Through Medium Optimization, High Cell Density Fermentation and Cell Recycling

“…Bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol has drawn great attention because of its benefit to environmental, economic, and social sustainability. However, the high production cost of lignocellulosic ethanol remains the bottleneck for its commercialization (Jin et al, 2012; Karagoz et al, 2019). One of the causes for the high production costs is the low volumetric productivity (Ferreira et al, 2018).…”