Fuel Ethanol Production from Corn Stover: Optimization of Steam Pretreatment and Improvement of Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation
Fuel ethanol, produced from biomass, could well be tomorrow's replacement for gasoline. This thesis deals with the production of fuel ethanol from corn stover using an enzymatic process consisting of the following main steps: steam pretreatment of the raw material, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation of the sugars and ethanol refining. SO2-catalysed steam pretreatment was shown to give high glucose