• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.141-148
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• 2012

In order to study the utilization of brown seaweed Laminaria japonica as an alternative renewable feedstock for bioethanol production, the properties of acid hydrolysis and ethanol fermentation were investigated. The acid hydrolysis enhanced the final yield of fermentable sugars, which led great increase of ethanol productivity. The maximum yield of reducing sugars reached 135 mg/g-dry Laminaria japonica after 1.0N sulfuric acid-hydrolysis at $130^{\circ}C$ for 6 h. The Saccharomyces cerevisiae (ATCC 24858) could ferment $C_6$-sugars like glucose, galactose and mannose into ethanol, but not $C_5$-sugars like arabinose and xylose. Optimal fermentation time varied with sugars; 48 h for glucose, 72 h for galactose, and 96 h for mannose. Nevertheless, the ethanol yield from the hydrolysate reached 242 mg/g-dry Laminaria japonica after fermentation by the S. cerevisiae at $35^{\circ}C$ for 96 h, which corresponds to approximately 4 times more than the theoretical yield from total reducing sugars in the hydrolysates. It indicates that the non-reducing sugars or oligosaccharides dissolved in the hydrolysate played an important role in producing bioethanol. The ethanol concentration linearly increased from 2.4 to 9.2 g/L, while the ethanol yield per dry weight of biomass decreased from 242 to 185 mg/g, with increasing the ratio of biomass to acid solution from 1 to 5% (w/v). The bioethanol yield estimated was approximately 7,400~9,600 kg/ha/year, and indicated that Laminaria japonica is a promissing feedstock for bioethanol production.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.335-341
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• 2013

Ammonia circulation reactor (ACR) was devised for the effective pretreatment of corn stover. This method is designed to circulate aqueous ammonia continuously so that it can reduce the chemical and water consumption during pretreatment. In this study, ammonia pretreatment with various reaction conditions such as reaction time (4~12 hour), temperature ($60{\sim}80^{\circ}C$), and solid:liquid ratio (1:3~1:8) was tested. Chemical compositions including solid remaining after reaction, lignin and carbohydrates were analyzed and enzymatic digestibility was also measured. It was observed that as reaction conditions become more severe, lignin removal was significantly affected, which was in the range of 47.6~70.6%. On the other hands, glucan and xylan losses were not substantial as compared to that of lignin. At all tested conditions, the glucan loss was not changed substantially, which was between 4.7% and 15.2%, while the xylan loss varied, which was between 7.4% and 25.8%. With (15 FPU-GC220+30 CBU)/g-glucan of enzyme loading, corn stover treated using ammonia circulation reactor for 8~12 hours resulted in 90.1~94.5% of 72-h glucan digestibility, which was higher than 92.7% of $Avicel^{(R)}$-101. In addition, initial hydrolysis rate (at 24 hour) of this treated corn stover was 73.0~79.4%, which was shown to be much faster than 69.5% of $Avicel^{(R)}$-101. As reaction time increased, more lignin removal and it was assumed that the enhanced enzymatic digestibility of treated biomass was attributed to the lignin removal.