Author
 |
Saha, Badal |
|
Submitted to: American Chemical Society National Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 4/5/2001 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: Corn fiber, a by-product of corn wet milling industry, serves as a low cost feedstock for production of fuel ethanol. Several pretreatments (hot water, alkali, and dilute acid) and enzymatic saccharification procedures were evaluated for conversion of corn fiber starch, cellulose, and hemicellulose to fermentable sugars. The structure of corn fiber xylan is very complex, and commercially available hemicellulase preparations do not effectively hydrolyze it to simple sugars. Based on these findings, a method of dilute acid pretreatment (0.5% H2SO4, v/v, 121 deg C, 1 h) of corn fiber (15%, w/v) and saccharification (45 deg C, pH 5.0, 72 h) with commercial cellulase and beta-glucosidase preparations is presented. The yield of monomeric sugars from corn fiber was typically 85-100% of the theoretical yield. Our progress in research on the development of several novel enzymes for cellulose and hemicellulose conversion will be described. .The problems and prospects of using enzymes in corn fiber saccharification for production of fuel ethanol and economic assessment will be discussed. |
