title: Ethanol production from horticultural waste treated by a modified organosolv method.
abstract: In this study, we investigated the use of horticultural waste (HW) collected in Singapore as a renewable raw material for bioethanol production. A modified organosolv method using ethanol cooking under mild conditions followed by H(2)O(2) post-treatment was investigated for HW pretreatment. It was found that the addition of acid catalysts in the pretreatment process was not critical and post-treatment using H(2)O(2) was essential for the enhancement of HW digestibility. Enzymatic hydrolysis of the organosolv pretreated HW with 17.5% solid content, enzyme loading of 20 FPU/g HW of filter paper cellulase, and 80 CBU/g HW of β-glucosidase resulted in a HW hydrolysate containing 26.9 g/L reducing sugar after 72 h. Fermentation of the above hydrolysate medium produced 11.69 g/L ethanol at 8h using Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It proved that horticultural waste was a potential feedstock for fuel ethanol production and organosolv pretreatment method developed in this study was effective.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences and Chemical Technology, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore. gan2@np.edu.sg
authors.forename: Anli
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Geng
authors.forename: Fengxue
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xin
authors.forename: Jun-yu
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Ip
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D000431:Ethanol / Q000378:metabolism*; D007220:Industrial Waste / Q000517:prevention & control*; D010936:Plant Extracts / Q000378:metabolism*; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000378:metabolism*; D012997:Solvents / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D007220:Industrial Waste; D010936:Plant Extracts; D012997:Solvents; D000431:Ethanol