Guigou, M.; Guarino, J.; Chiarello, L.M.; Cabrera, M.N.; Vique, M.; Lareo, C.; Ferrari, M.D.; Ramos, L.P. Steam Explosion of Eucalyptus grandis Sawdust for Ethanol Production within a Biorefinery Approach. Processes2023, 11, 2277.
Guigou, M.; Guarino, J.; Chiarello, L.M.; Cabrera, M.N.; Vique, M.; Lareo, C.; Ferrari, M.D.; Ramos, L.P. Steam Explosion of Eucalyptus grandis Sawdust for Ethanol Production within a Biorefinery Approach. Processes 2023, 11, 2277.
Guigou, M.; Guarino, J.; Chiarello, L.M.; Cabrera, M.N.; Vique, M.; Lareo, C.; Ferrari, M.D.; Ramos, L.P. Steam Explosion of Eucalyptus grandis Sawdust for Ethanol Production within a Biorefinery Approach. Processes2023, 11, 2277.
Guigou, M.; Guarino, J.; Chiarello, L.M.; Cabrera, M.N.; Vique, M.; Lareo, C.; Ferrari, M.D.; Ramos, L.P. Steam Explosion of Eucalyptus grandis Sawdust for Ethanol Production within a Biorefinery Approach. Processes 2023, 11, 2277.
Abstract
The generation of eucalypt sawdust has increased in Uruguay with the expansion of pulp and paper industrial sites. Currently, most of this readily available feedstock is either not used or applied for producing heat and power by combustion in biomass boilers. In this work, eucalypt sawdust was subjected to steam explosion as the first step for cellulosic ethanol production within the biorefinery concept. The effect of sawdust moisture content, pretreatment temperature and residence time were evaluated, along with the influence of water washing of steam-exploded solids on enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation yields. After steam explosion, 60% xylans and 97% acetyl groups were recovered mainly as oligomers and acetic acid in the pretreatment liquor. Eucalypt sawdust moisture content affected the enzymatic hydrolysis performance and glucan conversion efficiency. Water washing after pretreatment improved hydrolysis efficiencies and ethanol production yields by 10% with respect to the unwashed pretreated solids at the same experimental condition. The best ethanol yields were obtained using PSSF (pre-saccharification and simultaneous saccharification and fermentation) after pretreatment at 205°C for 10 min, using sawdust with an 8% moisture content. In this case, 227 L ethanol and 40 kg total xylose (including xylo-oligomers) were obtained per ton of dry eucalypt sawdust.
Keywords
eucalypt sawdust; steam explosion; cellulosic ethanol; PSSF; high total solids; biomass moisture content
Subject
Engineering, Chemical Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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