Title:
Production of Bioethanol and Chemicals from Arundo Donax
Author(s):
De Bari, I., Liuzzi, F., Viceconte, D., Villone, A.
Document(s):
Paper
Abstract:
The use of versatile technologies is a key factor in the biorefineries economy because they could ensure a certain flexibility on the final products. Steam explosion can be considered a versatile pretreatment technology since it produces high degrees of biomass destructuration and facilitate fractionation in its macro-components. In the present paper the conversion of steam-pretreated Arundo donax to ethanol and/or furan compounds is presented. In particular, acid-catalyzed dehydration of sugars to furan compounds was carried out by using a microwave-assisted process in a biphasic medium H2O/butanol at different temperatures (120-200°C). The results indicate that, hydrolysis of steam pretreated Arundo donax at high DM content, up to 30%, produced mixed syrups with concentrations of 120-130g/L. A separate processing of the C6 and C5 streams gave 80% of the theoretical ethanol from C6 and 95% of the theoretical 2-furancarbaldehyde from C5. The alternative conversion of the C6 rich fraction into HMF was also explored. The direct dehydration of steam pretreated biomass did not produce a significant conversion of glucose in HMF. A partial saccharification of the biomass up to the liquefaction point, increased the HMF yield up to 17% of soluble glucose. The further enzymatic isomerization of glucose (58%) increased the HMF production up to 64% of the theoretical yield.
Keywords:
bioethanol, biorefinery, Arundo donax L.
Topic:
R&D on Biomass Conversion Technologies for Heating, Electricity and Chemicals
Subtopic:
Biorefineries
Event:
21st European Biomass Conference and Exhibition
Session:
2DV.2.46
Pages:
1065 - 1069
ISBN:
978-88-89407-53-0
Paper DOI:
10.5071/21stEUBCE2013-2DV.2.46
Price:
FREE
