Simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation for bioethanol production using corncobs at lab, PDU and demo scales

The global CO2 emissions in 2010 from fossil energy use grew at the fastest rate since 1969. The year 2010 also witnessed that the global oil production did not match the rapid growth in consumption [1]. These recent data further intensify worldwide concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and energy security for a sustained economic development. For a reduced dependence on oil from fossil reserves, use of biofuels such as bioethanol from abundantly available lignocellulosic biomass is of great interest nowadays because they will count towards meeting the mandate of 10% binding target for biofuels from renewable sources in the transport for all European member states by 2020 [2]. Along with this interest comes increased interest in commercializing ethanol production technology from inexpensive lignocellulosic feedstocks which includes wood biomass, agricultural and forestry residues, biodegradable fraction of industrial and municipal wastes. Irrespective of type, the basic structural composition of lignocellulosic biomass consists of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. The cellulose and hemicellulose that form the polysaccharide fraction are embedded in a recalcitrant and inaccessible arrangement [3] and therefore requires a pretreatment step to disrupt the structure and make it accessible for subsequent steps. Since lignocellulosic materials are very complex, not one pretreatment method can apply for all the materials. Several methods that are classified in to physical, physico-chemical, chemical and biological pretreatment have been investigated and an elaborate review on each of these methods has been presented by Taherzadeh and Karimi [4]. One of the most commonly used pretreatment methods is steam explosion, with the addition of H2SO4 or SO2, which removes most of the hemicellulose, followed by enzymatic hydrolysis to convert cellulose to glucose [5,6]