Steam pretreatment of dry and ensiled industrial hemp for ethanol production

Bálint Sipos (1) , Emma Kreuger (2) , Sven-Erik Svensson (3) , Kati Réczey (1) , Lovisa Björnsson (2) , Guido Zacchi (4)

1 Department of Applied Biotechnology and Food Science
2 Department of Biotechnology
3 Department of Agriculture - Farming Systems
4 Department of Chemical Engineering

Biomass can be converted into liquid and gaseous biofuels with good efficiency. In this study, the conversion of industrial hemp ( L.), a biomass source that can be cultivated with a high biomass yield per hectare, was used. Steam pretreatment of dry and ensiled hemp was investigated prior to ethanol production. The pretreatment efficiency was evaluated in terms of sugar recovery and polysaccharide conversion in the enzymatic hydrolysis step. For both materials, impregnation with 2% SO followed by steam pretreatment at 210°C for five minutes were found to be the optimal conditions leading to the highest overall yield of glucose. Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation experiments carried out with optimised pretreatment conditions resulted in ethanol yields of 163 g kg ensiled hemp (dry matter) (71% of the theoretical maximum) and 171 g kg dry hemp (74%), which corresponds to 206-216 l Mg ethanol based on initial dry material.

Mots clés: energy crops; lignocellulose; enzymatic hydrolysis; SSF; SPH; SPHS; WIS

Domaines: Sciences de l'environnement

Bálint Sipos, Emma Kreuger, Sven-Erik Svensson, Kati Réczey, Lovisa Björnsson, et al.. Steam pretreatment of dry and ensiled industrial hemp for ethanol production. Biomass and Bioenergy, 2010, 34 (12), pp.1721. ⟨10.1016/j.biombioe.2010.07.003⟩. ⟨hal-00748065⟩