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Fermentative Production of Ethanol Using Pinus patula as Raw Material: Economic and Energy Assessment

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Abstract

The production of cellulosic ethanol has been gaining attention in the industry sector because of the high availability of lignocellulosic biomass from agricultural and forestry activities. Pinus patula is one of the most typical softwood species in Colombia. The aim of this work is to evaluate the production of ethanol using Pinus patula as raw material using dilute acid pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis to produce sugars able to be used as substrate for the strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Three fermentation configurations were selected to evaluate the performance of the microorganism: configurations 1 and 2 used glucose in a percentage of 80%w/v and 70%w/v, respectively, as substrate to establish the adaptation requirements of the microorganism. The configuration 3 considered the use of concentrated P. patula hydrolysate. An experimental yield of 0.364 ± 0.009 g ethanol/g sugar (73% of the theoretical) was obtained. Additionally, the economic and energetic comparison between the biochemical (ethanol production through fermentation) and thermochemical (synthesis gas through gasification) pathways to produce bioenergy was performed through simulation approaches. As main results, a higher ethanol production cost (1.53 USD/L) was obtained in comparison to the market price (0.77 USD/L) and a low energy efficiency (20%). Different alternatives such as waste integration and energy incentives must be considered in order to produce ethanol in a feasible way.

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Acknowledgements

The authors express their acknowledgments to the Centro de Bioinformática y Biología Computacional (BIOS) for the financial support through the project entitled “Fortalecimiento de CTEI en biotecnologia para el departamento de Caldas apoyado por infraestructura computacional avanzada y trabajo colaborativo (CALDAS BIOREGION)” Grant No. 08112013-0621. The authors also express their gratitude to the Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Manizales through the Projects entitled “Development of modular small-scale integrated biorefineries to produce an optimal range of bioproducts from a variety of rural agricultural and agroindustrial residues/wastes with a minimum consumption of fossil energy—SMIBIO” from ERANET LAC 2015 Grant No. 202010011331 and the Project “Techno-economic and environmental evaluation of a biorefinery using the residues from the Coffee Crop” Grant No. 202010014230.

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  1. Instituto de Biotecnología y Agroindustria, Departamento de Ingeniería Química, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Manizales, Cra. 27 No. 64-60, Manizales, Colombia

    Carlos A. García-Velásquez, Estefanny Carmona-Garcia, Ashley Sthefanía Caballero, Juan C. Solarte-Toro, Jimmy A. Martínez-Ruano & Carlos A. Cardona

  2. School of Biochemical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaíso, Av. Brasil, 2085, Valparaíso, Chile

    Jimmy A. Martínez-Ruano

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  1. Carlos A. García-Velásquez
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García-Velásquez, C.A., Carmona-Garcia, E., Caballero, A.S. et al. Fermentative Production of Ethanol Using Pinus patula as Raw Material: Economic and Energy Assessment. Waste Biomass Valor 11, 1777–1788 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-018-0494-4

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