Bioethanol production from sodium hydroxide – dilute sulfuric acid pretreatment of rice husk via simultaneous saccharification and fermentation

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering Faculty of Engineering Universitas Sriwijaya, 30662 Inderalaya, Indonesia
² Department of Chemical Engineering School of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Curtin University, 6102 Perth, Australia

^* Corresponding author: novia@ft.unsri.ac.id; noviasumardi@yahoo.com

Abstract

Degradation of lignin from lignocellulosic biomass plays a main key role in converting of lignocelluloses to bioethanol. The pretreatment of lignocelluloses is needed to enhance the fermentable sugars production from enzymatic hydrolysis. This research studied the effect of dilute sulfuric acid pretreatment on the ethanol production using alkaline-dilute acid pretreatment. This research used two stages of the pretreatment process. The first stage used NaOH solution with ratio of rice husk and NaOH solution (1:10 w/v). On the second stage, five concentrations of sulfuric acid of 1 to 5% at temperature of 121°C and various heating times (30–90 min) were investigated. The ethanol production from pretreated rice husk was conducted by the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) for various SSF times of 72-160 hr. The experimental results indicated that an increase in concentration of sulfuric acid capable to destroy the lignocellulosic structure of rice husk. The highest value of cellulose content was achieved about 88.84 % for acid pretreated material at H₂SO₄ concentration of 2% in 90 minutes. The lignin reduction ranged from 47.46% to 79.29%. The highest ethanol concentration obtained was 13.68 g/L for the SSF time of 120 hours and the sulfuric acid concentration of 3 %.