Tuesday, April 20, 2010
LL Conference Facility (Hilton Clearwater Beach)
Using wheat straw to produce biofuel will add value to the land and will also reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by replacing petroleum products. In order to investigate the feasibility of converting wheat straw into ethanol, wheat straw underwent dilute sulfuric acid and hot water pretreatment processes in a solvent extractor, which provides a fast heating rate of 25 °C/min. The pretreatment processes were studied using the following treatment variables: reaction temperature (100-190°C, 1500 psi) and residence time (5-15 min). The pretreatment processes and enzymatic saccharification were evaluated for conversion of wheat straw cellulose and hemicellulose to monomeric sugars. Both dilute sulfuric acid and hot water pretreatment processes were able to effectively increase enzymatic digestibility of wheat straw cellulose. And a high temperature (180-190°C) pretreatment resulted in more total extractables. However, HPLC analysis showed that this higher temperature caused a breakdown of the sugars.