Abstract:
Furfural was produced from corn stover by one stage pretreatment process using dilute H3PO4 and solid residues following furfural production were used for ethanol production by Saccharomyces cerevisiae NRRL-Y2034. A series of experiments were conducted at varied temperatures (140-200 degrees C) and acid doses (0.0-2.0%, v/v) in order to determine optimal conditions. The effects of time (5-25 min) and substrate concentration (5-15%, w/w) on furfural production were determined at optimal temperature (200 degrees C) and acid dose (0.75%, v/v). Maximum furfural yield (10.8 +/- 0.3 g/100 g stover) was achieved at 20-25 min duration with 5% (w/w) corn stover which corresponds to 61.6% of the potential yield. About 74% of the glucan content of corn stover was converted to glucose after enzymatic digestion of solid residues. S. cerevisiae NRRL-Y2034 fermented glucose from the solid residues efficiently to ethanol. It produced 0.47-0.50 g ethanol per g glucose which corresponds to 92-99% of the theoretical yield. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.