Production of bioethanol from lignocellulosic material in membrane bioreactor

Bioethanol is a second generation biofuel that has recently received attention due to limited fossil fuel resources and air pollution cause of fossil fuels. In this study production of bioethanol from lignocellulosic material of corn fiber in a membrane bioreactor was investigated. Acid pretreatment was used to increase the fraction of cellulose to 41%. The strain of saccharomyces cerevisiae was used as yeast. In most previous works the experimens have been performed in batch systems, whereas in this study simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) were performed in a continuous ultrafilteration membrane reactor, where the product is removed to prevent the inhibitory effect of the product on bioethanol production yield and enzyme deactivation. Experimental design and optimization was carried out by Design Expert software. The optimum conditions were determined to be: temperature (38.5°C), agitation speed (631.2 rpm) and surfactant concentration (0.08%v/v). Under these conditions the predicted ethanol yield was 87.8% and the actual experimental value was 84.2%.