Ethanol production from sweet sorghum residual

In this work, the ethanol production from sweet sorghum residue was studied. Sweet sorghum residue was hydrolyzed with phosphoric acid under mild conditions. The liquid hydrolysate was fermented by Pachysolen tannophilus, and the hydrolysis residue was fermented by the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) using Saccharomyces cerevisiae with cellulase (60 FPU/g dry materials). Orthogonal experiments were carried out to investigate the effects of main reaction condition factors, such as temperature, acid concentration, time and dry-matter content, on the reducing sugar yield. The results show that the optimal reaction conditions should be 120°C, 80 g/L, 80 min and 10%, respectively. Under these conditions, 0.3024 g reducing sugar/g dry material was obtained. The liquid hydrolysate was then fermented by P.tannophilus with the highest ethanol concentration of 14.5 g/L. At a water-insoluble solid concentration of 5%, 5.4 g/L ethanol was obtained after 12 h of SSF. The total ethanol yield was 0.147 g/g dry material, which would be beneficial for the application of ethanol production from sweet sorghum residue.