SECOND GENERATION BIOFUELS: LIGNOCELLULOSSIC BIOMASS OF AGRO

RESIDUES AS POTENTIAL BIOREFINARY FEED STOCK FOR BIOETHANOL

PRODUCTION

G.S. Suresha

Division of Crop Production, ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute Coimbatore, Tamil

Nadu, India

Biomass has been one of the main sources of energy for mankind ever since the dawn of civilization.
In fact the fossil fuels are also derived from biomass that was dead a long time ago. Of all the
estimated 1000 mt of biomass that is produced through agriculture at present, only about one third is
utilized as food, feed and fibre. A fraction of the remaining biomass is utilized as roughage for animal
feeding; some for domestic and industrial fuel. It is estimated that about 150 mt of surplus biomass is
still be available for conversion into fuel. The annual biomass production from rice, wheat and
sugarcane trashes and residues of other major crops in India amounts to nearly 300 mt. Nearly 50% of
vegetative material is harvested as straw/trash and the remainder is left in the field as stubbles.
Retrieval of crop residues depends mainly on market demand either for livestock feed, fuel and other
industrial uses. So, the only foreseeable source for fuel and chemical feedstock is biomass. The use of
agro wastes as byproducts is likely to increase in the near future, mostly due to public appreciation of
natural components as opposed to synthetic chemicals. India advocates use of ethanol as
transportation fuel and 5% blending of ethanol with gasoline is mandatory in nine states. The demand
for ethanol is 1.17 billion litre if 10% blend is used, creating large business for ethanol.

In a realistic scenario the availability of feedstock in India is with 3% major feed stock like wheat,
rice and sugarcane bagasse being used for production and at 75% theoretical yield, the projected
ethanol yield will 3645 billion liters annually. The agriculturally important residues are stover, straws,
bagasse and energy crops.

Lignocellulose present in number of agricultural byproducts consists of mixture of cellulose,

hemicelluose and lignin. Cellulosic biomass contain 40-50% cellulose, a glucose polymer; 25-35%
hemicelluose, sugar heteropolymer and 15-20% lignin, a non fermentable phenyl-propene unit; plus
less amounts of minerals, oils, soluble sugars and other components. In a typical biorefinary concept
the biomass is fractionated to give purified cellulose, hemicelluose and lignin. The purified cellulose
can be converted glucose and further to ethanol, xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, lactic acid, gluconic acid
etc. The hemicelluloses give pentose sugars and can be used for ethanol, xylose and xylitol
production. Lignin may be utilized as asphalt bind as an additive and for energy production.
Bioconversion of lignocellulossic biomass consists of four major unit operations; pretreatment,
hydrolysis and product separation/distillation. Pretreatment is required to alter the biomass
macroscopic and microscopic size and structure as well as its submicroscopic chemical composition
and structure so that hydrolysis of carbohydrate fraction to monomeric sugars can be achieved more
rapidly and grater yields. Pretreatment affects the structure of biomass by solubilising hemicelluloses,
reducing crystallinity and increase the available surface area and more volume of the substrate.
Pretreatment can be carryout in different ways such as mechanical combination, steam explosion,
ammonia fiber explosion, acid or alkaline pretreatment and biological treatment.

After pretreatment there are two types of processes to hydrolyze the feedstock in to monomeric sugar
constituents required for fermentation into ethanol. The hydrolysis methods most commonly used are
acid (dilute and concentrated) and enzymatic. To improve the enzymatic hydrolytic efficiency the
lignin-hemicelluose network has to be loosened for better amenability of cellulases to residual
carbohydrate fraction for sugar recovery. Enzymatic hydrolysis performed separately for fermentation
step is known as separate hydrolysis fermentation. The most important processes improvement made
for the enzymatic hydrolysis of biomass is the introduction of simultaneous saccharification and
fermentation. This approach combines the cellulose enzymes and fermenting microbes in one vessel.
This enabled a one step process of sugar production and fermentation into ethanol. Simultaneous
saccharification of both carbon polymer cellulose to glucose and hemicelluose to xylose and arabinose
and fermentation will be carried out by recombinant yeast or the organism which has ability to utilize
both C5 and C6 sugars. The sugar syrup obtained after cellulosic hydrolysis is used for ethanol
fermentation. The ability to ferment pentoses along with hexoses is not widespread among the
microorganisms. S. cereviseae is capable of converting only sugars to ethanol. The most promising
yeasts that have the ability to use both C 5 and C6 sugars are Pichia stipitis, Candida shehatae and
Pachysolan tannophilus.

Researchers are now focusing developing recombinant yeast and other microbes which can greatly
improve ethanol production yield by metabolizing all form of sugars, reduce the cost of operation. In
this direction, there are two approaches may be used. One is to genetically modify the yeast and other
natural ethanologens to have additional pentose metabolic pathways. The second approach is to
improve ethanol yields by genetic engineering in microbes that have the ability to ferment both
hexoses and pentoses.