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Updated: Feb 23, 2026
Evaluation of Integrated Anaerobic Digestion and Hydrothermal Carbonization for Bioenergy Production
Published on: June 15, 2014
Sequential high gravity ethanol fermentation and anaerobic digestion of steam explosion and organosolv pretreated
Constantinos Katsimpouras1, Maria Zacharopoulou1, Leonidas Matsakas2
1Industrial Biotechnology & Biocatalysis Group, School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 9 Iroon Polytechniou Str., Zografou Campus, Athens 15780, Greece.
Abstract:
The present work investigates the suitability of pretreated corn stover (CS) to serve as feedstock for high gravity (HG) ethanol production at solids-content of 24wt%. Steam explosion, with and without the addition of H2SO4, and organosolv pretreated CS samples underwent a liquefaction/saccharification step followed by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF). Maximum ethanol concentration of ca. 76g/L (78.3% ethanol yield) was obtained from steam exploded CS (SECS) with 0.2% H2SO4. Organosolv pretreated CS (OCS) also resulted in high ethanol concentration of ca. 65g/L (62.3% ethanol yield). Moreover, methane production through anaerobic digestion (AD) was conducted from fermentation residues and resulted in maximum methane yields of ca. 120 and 69mL/g volatile solids (VS) for SECS and OCS samples, respectively. The results indicated that the implementation of a liquefaction/saccharification step before SSF employing a liquefaction reactor seemed to handle HG conditions adequately.
