13-26: Withdrawn

Supplying almost 1/3 of world sugar production, sugar beets are a large industrially relevant crop.  Due to increased demand for biofuels, several European sugar manufacturers are co-producing ethanol from sugar processing intermediates as a means to adjust to fluctuating market demands.  Described here is a process whereby sugar beet is ground and enzymatically liquefied to enable high solids (approximately 20% total solids) fermentation with rapidly deployable conventional fermentation infrastructure.  This process reduces the need for a hot water diffusion step as might typically be employed for sugar production and allows for subsequent utilization of remaining constituents.  Different loadings for commercially available enzyme cocktails containing cellulases, hemicellulases, pectinases, and β-glucosidases are investigated to determine optimum design parameters.  Relationships between liquefaction and saccharification phenomena are examined in order to aid scale-up design.