Efficient production of ethanol from empty palm fruit bunch fibers by fed-batch simultaneous saccharification and fermentation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

The concentration of ethanol produced from lignocellulosic biomass should be at least 40 g l-1 [about 5 % (v/v)] to minimize the cost of distillation process. In this study, the conditions for the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) at fed-batch mode for the production of ethanol from alkali-pretreated empty palm fruit bunch fibers (EFB) were investigated. Optimal conditions for the production of ethanol were identified as temperature, 30 C; enzyme loading, 15 filter paper unit g-1 biomass; yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) loading, 5 g l-1 of dry cell weight. Under these conditions, an economical ethanol concentration was achieved within 17 h, which further increased up to 62.5 g l-1 after 95 h with 70.6 % of the theoretical yield. To our knowledge, this is the first report to evaluate the economic ethanol production from alkali-pretreated EFB in fed-batch SSF using S. cerevisiae.