1. Seawater as Alternative to Freshwater in Pretreatment of Date Palm Residues for Bioethanol Production in Coastal and/or Arid Areas.
- Author
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Fang C, Thomsen MH, Brudecki GP, Cybulska I, Frankaer CG, Bastidas-Oyanedel JR, and Schmidt JE
- Subjects
- Biomass, Fermentation, Hydrolysis, Lignin chemistry, Lignin metabolism, Plant Leaves chemistry, Saccharomyces cerevisiae metabolism, Biofuels microbiology, Biotechnology methods, Ethanol metabolism, Fresh Water chemistry, Phoeniceae chemistry, Seawater chemistry, Water Supply
- Abstract
The large water consumption (1.9-5.9 m(3) water per m(3) of biofuel) required by biomass processing plants has become an emerging concern, which is particularly critical in arid/semiarid regions. Seawater, as a widely available water source, could be an interesting option. This work was to study the technical feasibility of using seawater to replace freshwater in the pretreatment of date palm leaflets, a lignocellulosic biomass from arid regions, for bioethanol production. It was shown that leaflets pretreated with seawater exhibited lower cellulose crystallinity than those pretreated with freshwater. Pretreatment with seawater produced comparably digestible and fermentable solids to those obtained with freshwater. Moreover, no significant difference of inhibition to Saccharomyces cerevisiae was observed between liquids from pretreatment with seawater and freshwater. The results showed that seawater could be a promising alternative to freshwater for lignocellulose biorefineries in coastal and/or arid/semiarid areas., (© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)
- Published
- 2015
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