Bioethanol production from Gracilaria verrucosa, a red alga, in a biorefinery approach

In this study, Gracilaria verrucosa, red seaweed has been used for production of agar and bioethanol. The algae harvested at various time durations resulted in extraction of ~27-33% agar. The leftover pulp was found to contain ~62-68% holocellulose, which on enzymatic hydrolysis yielded 0.87 g sugars/g cellulose. The enzymatic hydrolysate on fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae produced ethanol with an ethanol yield of 0.43 g/g sugars. The mass balance evaluation of the complete process demonstrates that developing biorefinery approach for exploiting Gracilaria verrucosa, a red alga, could be commercially viable.