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Comparison of Different Pretreatment Strategies for Ethanol Production of West African Biomass

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Abstract

Pretreating lignocellulosic biomass for cellulosic ethanol production in a West African setting requires smaller scale and less capital expenditure compared to current state of the art. In the present study, three low-tech methods applicable for West African conditions, namely Boiling Pretreatment (BP), Soaking in Aqueous Ammonia (SAA) and White Rot Fungi pretreatment (WRF), were compared to the high-tech solution of hydrothermal pretreatment (HTT). The pretreatment methods were tested on 11 West African biomasses, i.e. cassava stalks, plantain peelings, plantain trunks, plantain leaves, cocoa husks, cocoa pods, maize cobs, maize stalks, rice straw, groundnut straw and oil palm empty fruit bunches. It was found that four biomass’ (plantain peelings, plantain trunks, maize cobs and maize stalks) were most promising for production of cellulosic ethanol with profitable enzymatic conversion of glucan (>30 g glucan per 100 g total solids (TS)). HTT did show better results in both enzymatic convertibility and fermentation, but evaluated on the overall ethanol yield the low-tech pretreatment methods are viable alternatives with similar levels to the HTT (13.4–15.2 g ethanol per 100 g TS raw material).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from Danida Fellowship Centre (DFC) of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as a part of the project “Biofuel production from lignocellulosic materials—2GBIONRG”, DFC journal no. 10-018RISØ (http://2gbionrg.dk ). Annette Eva Jensen, Tomas Fernqvist and Ingelis Larsen are acknowledged for their vital and professional assistance in the laboratory. Dr Moses Mensah and Dr Edward Yeboah are recognised for providing the residues. Professor Hanne Østergård is sincerely thanked for her help with the planning and motivation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for BioProcess Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, 2800, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

    Sune Tjalfe Thomsen, Jorge Enrique González Londoño, Jens Ejbye Schmidt & Zsófia Kádár

  2. Institute Center for Energy–iEnergy, Masdar Institute for Science and Technology, PO Box 54224, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Jens Ejbye Schmidt

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  1. Sune Tjalfe Thomsen
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  2. Jorge Enrique González Londoño
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  3. Jens Ejbye Schmidt
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  4. Zsófia Kádár
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Correspondence to Zsófia Kádár.

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Thomsen, S.T., Londoño, J.E.G., Schmidt, J.E. et al. Comparison of Different Pretreatment Strategies for Ethanol Production of West African Biomass. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 175, 2589–2601 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-014-1444-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-014-1444-7

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