Cecilia Sambusiti, Chlo�© Navas, Eric Dubreucq and Abdellatif Barakat
INRA UMR IATE, France
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Organic Chem Curr Res
The presence of bark in wood can constitute a serious limitation for the bioconversion of forest residues into bioethanol, especially due to the presence of high content of extractives, which may inhibit ethanol fermentation. However, a perfectly debarked wood chip may not represent an economical source of carbohydrates for industrial applications. An option is to utilise bark as a source of renewable energy and chemicals, within a biorefinery platform. In this study, enzymatic hydrolysis and bioethanol fermentation of Douglas-fir bark were studied before and after organosolv and diluted acid pre-treatments performed at 150�°C and 180�°C. The recovery of valuable platforms molecules was also determined after pre-treatment. Results showed that an organosolv-free acid pretreatment performed at 150�°C gave the best results in terms of platforms molecules recovery (40% w/w) and bioethanol yield (2 g.100g-1 total solids). However, the low glucose and ethanol yields obtained (6% and 16% of the theoretical values, respectively) confirmed that enzymatic hydrolysis remains the limiting step of bioethanol fermentation from bark. Interestingly, ethanol was produced without inhibition of fermentation from the untreated and pretreated substrates.
Cecilia Sambusiti completed her PhD in March 2013 from Politecnico of Milan (Italy). Actually, she is engaged in a Postdoctoral work at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA, UMRIATE) in Montpellier (France). She has an academic background in environmental engineering combined with a practical work experience in catalytic processes (mechanical, thermal, chemical and enzymatic) and biological processes (anaerobic digestion, dark fermentation, ethanol fermentation). She is author and co-author of 13 refereed journal publications, 1 book chapter, and 10 international refereed conference publications.
