Alkali Pretreatment for Producing Ethanol from Lignocellulosics

We have proposed producing bioethanol from lignocellulosics using alkali pretreatment and enzymatic saccharification. In this work, a suitability of waste and recycled lignocellulosics for bioethanol production was evaluated. Sugi branches without debarking yielded a little lower glucose than that of sugi. However, it was suggested that sugi branches have sufficient potential as waste lignocellulosics for bioethanol production. Phenol resin which was included in plywood was removed effectively by alkali pretreatment, enzymatic saccharification of plywood pulp proceeded smoothly. A large amount of screen knots was produced after alkali pretreatment of particle board which contained resin. As a result, the glucose yield of particle board pulp was less than half that of sugi. A large proportion of sugi leaf was dissolved by alkali pretreatment, so the pulp yield of sugi leaf was very low. Furthermore, only a limited part of sugi leaf pulp was saccharified, and the glucose yield was only 2.8 %. These results indicated that sugi leaf is not a good lignocellulosics for bioethanol production. It was suggested that bamboo has sufficient potential as waste lignocellulosics for bioethanol production.