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Ethanol production from SPORL-pretreated lodgepole pine: preliminary evaluation of mass balance and process energy efficiency

  • Biotechnological Products and Process Engineering
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Abstract

Lodgepole pine from forest thinnings is a potential feedstock for ethanol production. In this study, lodgepole pine was converted to ethanol with a yield of 276 L per metric ton of wood or 72% of theoretical yield. The lodgepole pine chips were directly subjected to sulfite pretreatment to overcome recalcitrance of lignocellulose (SPORL) pretreatment and then disk-milled; the recovered cellulose substrate was quais-simultaneously saccharified enzymatically and fermented to ethanol using commercial cellulases and Saccharomyces cerevisiae D5A. The liquor stream from the pretreatment containing hydrolyzed sugars mainly from hemicelluloses was fermented by the same yeast strain after detoxification using an XAD resin column. The SPORL pretreatment was conducted at 180°C for a period of 25 min with a liquor-to-wood ratio of 3:1 (v/w) in a laboratory digester. Three levels of sulfuric acid charge (0.0%, 1.4%, and 2.2% on an oven dried wood basis in w/w) and three levels of sodium bisulfite charge (0.0%, 4.0%, and 8.0% in w/w) were applied. Mechanical and thermal energy consumption for milling and pretreatment were determined. These data were used to determine the efficiency of sugar recoveries and net ethanol energy production values and to formulate a preliminary mass and energy balance.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge Andy Youngblood and Tim Scott (both US Forest Service) for harvesting trees for the study. We especially appreciate Fred Matt and Diane Dietrich (both of the Forest Products Laboratory) for carrying out many careful analyses of carbohydrate of solids substrates and ethanol in SSF samples, respectively. The US Forest Service through the Program of Woody Biomass, Bioenergy, and Bioproducts (2008, 2009), the Chinese Scholarship Council, and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China provided financial support to W. Zhu and S. Tian for their visiting appointments at FPL.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, WI, USA

    J. Y. Zhu & Rolland Gleisner

  2. State Key Lab Pulp and Paper Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

    Wenyuan Zhu

  3. USDA Agricultural Research Service, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, Peoria, IL, USA

    Patricia OBryan & Bruce S. Dien

  4. College of Life Science, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China

    Shen Tian

  5. Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    J. Y. Zhu & X. J. Pan

Authors
  1. J. Y. Zhu
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  2. Wenyuan Zhu
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  3. Patricia OBryan
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  4. Bruce S. Dien
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  5. Shen Tian
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  6. Rolland Gleisner
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  7. X. J. Pan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. Y. Zhu.

Additional information

This work was conducted on official US government time by Zhu (J.Y.), Glesiner, OBryan, and Dien, while Zhu (W.) and Tian were visiting scientists at the USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory. The work is in the public domain in the USA.

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Zhu, J.Y., Zhu, W., OBryan, P. et al. Ethanol production from SPORL-pretreated lodgepole pine: preliminary evaluation of mass balance and process energy efficiency. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 86, 1355–1365 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-009-2408-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-009-2408-7

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