Effect of SAA Pretreatment on SSF at Low Temperature to Bioethanol Production from Rice Straw

Physical and chemical barriers, caused by the close association of the main components of cellulosic biomass, hinder the hydrolysis of cellulose to fermentable sugars. Since the main goal of pretreatment is to increase the enzyme accessibility improving digestibility of cellulose, development of an effective pretreatment process has been considered to be important. In this study, SAA (Soaking in Aqueous Ammonia) was chosen as pretreatment because this is the simple and low-cost method. Rice straw of which the production is outstandingly high in domestic agriculture residues in Korea was chosen as raw material. SSA pretreatment with various reaction time of 3 h to 72 h was tested. The enzymatic hydrolysis and SSF (Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation) were performed at three different temperature (30, 40 and 50 degrees C) to investigate performance of SSF upon various pretreatment conditions. As a result, this SAA treated-rice straw was found to have great potential for effective enzymatic hydrolysis and SSF with lower enzyme dosage at lower temperature (30 degrees C) than its conventional SSF. In SAA addition, SAA reduced fermentation time to 24 h owing to increase the initial hydrolysis rate substantially.