title: Assessment of holocellulose for the production of bioethanol by conserving Pinus radiata cones as renewable feedstock.
abstract: Renewable and green energy sources are much sought. Bioethanol is an environmentally friendly transportation fuel. Pine cones from Pinus radiata were shown to be a potential feedstock for the production of bioethanol. Alkaline (NaOH) pretreatment was carried out to delignify the lignocellulosic material and generate holocellulose (72 wt. % yield). The pretreated biomass was hydrolysed using HCl as catalyst under microwave irradiation and hydrothermal conditions. Microwave irradiation was found to be better than the hydrothermal process. Microwave irradiation accelerated the hydrolysis of biomass (42 wt. % conversion) with the reaction conditions being 3 M HCl and 5 min of irradiation time. Interestingly, even the xylose, which is the major component of the hydrolyzate was found to be metabolized to ethanol using Baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) under the experimental conditions. 5.7 g of ethanol could be produced from 100 g of raw pine cones.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel.
authors.forename: Amudhavalli
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Victor
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel.
authors.forename: Indra Neel
authors.initials: IN
authors.lastname: Pulidindi
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel; National Cheng Kung University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tainan 70101, Taiwan. Electronic address: gedanken@mail.biu.ac.il.
authors.forename: Aharon
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gedanken
mesh_terms: D056804:Biofuels; D018533:Biomass; D002482:Cellulose / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D003246:Conservation of Energy Resources / Q000379:methods; D000431:Ethanol / Q000378:metabolism*; D005285:Fermentation; D006868:Hydrolysis; D028223:Pinus / Q000378:metabolism*; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D056804:Biofuels; D000431:Ethanol; D002482:Cellulose
keywords: Acid hydrolysis; Bioethanol; Holocellulose; Microwave irradiation; Pinus radiata; Saccharomyces cerevisiae