Production of bioethanol from wheat straw

الملخص

Bioethanol is a renewable fuel, unlike fossil fuel derivatives, and has wide uses, most notably mixing it with gasoline in vehicles up to 30% of the fuel.

 The production of bioethanol by fermentation can be an important source of renewable energy, especially in countries where straw is available in surplus quantities.

The study aims to obtain biofuels, represented by bioethanol, by relying on wheat straw, The study relies on the cellulose found in straw that is strongly associated to lignin, Therefore, Straw was treated to release cellulose chains, The primary treatment process is done by hot water at high pressure above 9 bar), Then the cellulose chains were broken down into glucose by sulfuric acid, Then fermentation was performed by anaerobic bacteria (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) for about 3 days. Then the ethanol is separated from the fermentation mixture by distillation, the effect of several factors on the yield of ethanol production was studied. These were the straw to water ratio, fermentation temperature, fermentation time, PH of the fermentation mixture.

Using the optimum values of the several factors studied resulted in the production of ethanol at the rate of 10.2 g per 100 g of straw.