Impact of Furfural on Rapid Ethanol Production Using a Membrane Bioreactor

Päivi Ylitervo, Carl Johan Franzén and Mohammad J. Taherzadeh
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Päivi Ylitervo: School of Engineering, University of Borås, 501 90 Borås, Sweden
Carl Johan Franzén: Industrial Biotechnology, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96 Göteborg, Sweden
Mohammad J. Taherzadeh: School of Engineering, University of Borås, 501 90 Borås, Sweden

Energies, 2013, vol. 6, issue 3, 1-14

Abstract: A membrane bioreactor was developed to counteract the inhibition effect of furfural in ethanol production. Furfural, a major inhibitor in lignocellulosic hydrolyzates, is a highly toxic substance which is formed from pentose sugars released during the acidic degradation of lignocellulosic materials. Continuous cultivations with complete cell retention were performed at a high dilution rate of 0.5 h ?1 . Furfural was added directly into the bioreactor by pulse injection or by addition into the feed medium to obtain furfural concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 21.8 g L ?1 . At all pulse injections of furfural, the yeast was able to convert the furfural very rapidly by in situ detoxification. When injecting 21.8 g L ?1 furfural to the cultivation, the yeast converted it by a specific conversion rate of 0.35 g g ?1 h ?1 . At high cell density, Saccharomyces cerevisiae could tolerate very high furfural levels without major changes in the ethanol production. During the continuous cultures when up to 17.0 g L ?1 furfural was added to the inlet medium, the yeast successfully produced ethanol, whereas an increase of furfural to 18.6 and 20.6 g L ?1 resulted in a rapidly decreasing ethanol production and accumulation of sugars in the permeate. This study show that continuous ethanol fermentations by total cell retention in a membrane bioreactor has a high furfural tolerance and can conduct rapid in situ detoxification of medium containing high furfural concentrations.

Keywords: ethanol; Saccharomyces cerevisiae; membrane bioreactor; cross-flow filtration; furfural conversion kinetics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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