A relatively simple simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) technique was developed to determine ethanol production potential of a given large set of biomass sample. The technique is based on soaking approximately 0.5 grams of a biomass sample in aqueous ammonia at room temperature and atmospheric pressure for 24 hours and then fermenting with Saccharomyces cerevisiae for 24 hours using Spezyme CP, for the enzymatic hydrolysis. The technique has been demonstrated on a set of corn stover samples supplied by University of Wisconsin, Madison. The samples were weighed into the modified Ankom filter bags (F57) before soaking to avoid biomass loss during the pretreatment process. Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation of corn stover samples were performed inside 25 mL flasks with a total working volume of 10 mL. Fermentation samples taken at 24 hours were analyzed for ethanol production by HPLC. Theoretical ethanol yields of the samples were calculated (ranging 44.9% – 73%) and significantly different corn stover varieties were determined. It was observed that theoretical ethanol yields were highly correlated (r² = 0.90) with acid detergent lignin values while low correlation was determined between cellulose, hemicellulose and ethanol yields. The results suggest that this technique could successfully and easily be performed on a large set of biomass samples to determine ethanol production potentials and to compare the different biomass samples in terms of theoretical ethanol yields.

Key Words: Fermentation Technique, Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation, Corn Stover, Aqueous Ammonia Soaking