Wood chips from triploid poplar were pretreated with the white rot fungi Trametes velutina D10149 to degrade lignin and facilitate fuel ethanol production. Although microbial pretreatments did not result in significant lignin degradation, the data from simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) exhibited higher cellulose conversion (21-75% for biopretreated samples for 4-16 weeks) compared to the untreated poplar (18%). In spite of the maintainence of crystallinity, the modification of lignin structure during fungal treatment undoubtedly played a key role in improving cellulose bioconversion rates. Finally, the ethanol concentration of 5.16 g/L was detected in the fermentation broth from the cellulosic sample biodegraded for 16 weeks after 24 h of SSF, achieving 34.8% cellulose utilization in poplar. The potential fungal pretreatment with Trametes velutina D10149 was firstly explored in this study, additional investigation is still required especially to improve the selectivity for lignin degradation and optimize digestibility of cellulose.

Structural evaluation and SSF bioethanol production from biodegraded triploid poplar

245th National Meeting (2013)

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