Comparison of hydrophilic variation and bioethanol production of furfural residues after delignification pretreatment

Furfural residue (FR) is a waste lignocellulosic material with enormous potential for bioethanol production. In this study, bioethanol production from FR after delignification was compared. Hydrophilic variation was measured by conductometric titration to detect the relationship between hydrophilicity and bioethanol production. It was found that ethanol yield increased as delignification enhanced, and it reached up to 75.6% of theoretical yield for samples with 8.7% lignin. The amount of by-products decreased as delignification increased. New inflection points appeared in conductometric titration curves of samples that were partially delignified, but they vanished in the curves of the highly delignified samples. Total charges and carboxyl levels increased after slight delignification, and they decreased upon further delignification. These phenomena suggested some new hydrophilic groups were formed during pretreated delignification, which would be beneficial to enzymatic hydrolysis. However, some newly formed groups may act as toxicant to the yeast during simultaneous saccharification and fermentation.