Pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass and its conversion to ethanol

Abstract

Mixed leaf litter biomass comprising of Ashoka, Jamun, Mango, Poplar, Bamboo, Eucalyptus was collected, dried, processed and characterized for organic carbon, cellulose, hemicelluloses, and total Kjeldahl Nitrogen content and these were found to be 22.5, 17.11, 4.55 and 11% respectively. Reducing sugar content was checked by 3,5-dinitro salicylic acid method and ethanol estimation was done by Di-n butyl phthalate (DBP) method. Maximum amount of sugar 8.68 mg/g of biomass and 4 g/l ethanol were observed in case of acid pretreated samples. Cellulose and hemicellulose were degraded resulting in 32.2% increase in the sugar and 12.6% ethanol production after fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida shehate.