Wheat straw can serve as low cost feedstock for conversion to ethanol.  Pretreatment is crucial prior to enzymatic hydrolysis. We have used dilute H2SO4 pretreatment at a high temperature for pretreatment of wheat straw. The pretreated hydrolyzate was bioabated using a novel fungal strain able to utilize the generated fermentation inhibitors prior to sugar consumption.  A good yield of ethanol was obtained from the hydrolyzate by simultaneous saccharification using commercial cellulase and �-glucosidase and fermentation using recombinant E. coli FBR5 which is an excellent producer of ethanol from mixed multiple sugars.  The critical need for sterilization of the pretreated feedstock to solve contamination problem was met by using low level of antibiotic Virginiamycin, commonly used in corn to ethanol fermentation.  We will present our research on conversion of wheat straw to ethanol at 100 liter scale.  This work has considerable impact on scale-up issues of lignocellulosic ethanol production.

Scale-up of wheat straw conversion to fuel ethanol at 100 liter scale

245th National Meeting (2013)

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