Kinetic studies of bioethanol production from wheat straw

Abstract EN

Different concentration of sulfuric acid at varied temperature for different hydrolysis time and enzymatic saccharification were evaluated for conversion of wheat straw cellulose and hemicellulose to monomeric sugars.

The maximum yield of sugars (Glucose : 32.95, Xylose: 28.19 , Arabinose: 5.21 gm/100gm total Sugar 265.404 gm/l ) from wheat straw is achieved by hydrolysis process with 15% H2SO4 at 90oC for 60 minutes.

The results show the highest yield of ethanol production (91.363gm/l) obtained after 60 h of fermentation at 35oC.

The fermentation efficiency (FE%) at this condition is equal to 68.37%.The kinetics of fermentation process was studied at temperature ranging between 25 – 45oC in a stirred conical flask which served as a batch reactor.

The graphical method was employed to predict the order of the fermentation reaction.

The results obtained suggested a first order reaction and reaction rate constant (k) equal to 0.0818 h-1.The activation energy estimated from Arrhenius equation is 12.704 kJ/mol.