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Cellulosic Butanol Production from Agricultural Biomass and Residues: Recent Advances in Technology

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Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts

Abstract

This chapter details the recent advances made on bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass to butanol, a superior biofuel that can be used in internal combustion engines or transportation industry. It should be noted that butanol producing cultures cannot tolerate or produce more than 20–30 g/L of acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) in batch reactors of which butanol is of the order of 13–18 g/L. This is due to toxicity of butanol to the culture. In order to overcome this challenge, two approaches have been applied: (1) developing more butanol tolerant strains using genetic engineering techniques and (2) employing process engineering approaches to simultaneously recover butanol from the fermentation broth thus not allowing butanol concentrations in the reactor to accumulate beyond culture’s tolerance. By the application of the first approach, a number of butanol producing strains have been developed; however, none of these accumulated greater than 1,200 mg/L (1.2 g/L) butanol, while using the second approach total ABE up to 461 g/L has been produced. Attempts to improve the newly developed strains are continuing. Lignocellulosic substrates have been used to produce butanol due to their abundant availability and economical prices usually in the range of $24–60/ton as opposed to corn prices which have been in the range of $153–218/ton during recent months. It should be noted that lignocellulosic substrates require separate hydrolysis prior to fermentation. In a more recent approach, hydrolysis and fermentation (and simultaneous recovery) have been integrated or combined to reduce the cost of butanol production from cellulosic substrates. Using such an approach, up to 192 g/L ABE was produced from 430 g/L cellulosic biomass/sugars. Additionally, this chapter provides details of process integration and simultaneous product recovery technologies for butanol production.

Mention of trade names or commercial products in this article is solely for the purpose of providing scientific information and does not imply recommendation or endorsement by the United States Department of Agriculture. USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

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Acknowledgments

N. Qureshi would like to thank Michael A. Cotta (United States Department of Agriculture, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, Bioenergy Research Unit, Peoria, IL) for reading this manuscript and providing valuable and constructive comments. Part of this work was supported by the hatch grant (Project No: OHO01222; Department of Animal Sciences, The Ohio State University) to T.C. Ezeji.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (NCAUR), Bioenergy Research Unit, Renewable Products Technology, 1815 N University Street, Peoria, IL, 61604, USA

    N. Qureshi

  2. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (NCAUR), Renewable Products Technology, 1815 N University Street, Peoria, IL, 61604, USA

    S. Liu

  3. Department of Animal Sciences and Ohio State Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC), The Ohio State University, 305 Gerlaugh Hall, 1680 Madison Avenue, Wooster, OH, 44691, USA

    T. C. Ezeji

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Correspondence to N. Qureshi .

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  1. , Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, 23529, Virginia, USA

    James W. Lee

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Qureshi, N., Liu, S., Ezeji, T.C. (2013). Cellulosic Butanol Production from Agricultural Biomass and Residues: Recent Advances in Technology. In: Lee, J. (eds) Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3348-4_15

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