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Seawater as Alternative to Freshwater in Pretreatment of Date Palm Residues for Bioethanol Production in Coastal and/or Arid Areas
Author(s) -
Fang Chuanji,
Thomsen Mette Hedegaard,
Brudecki Grzegorz P.,
Cybulska Iwona,
Frankær Christian Grundahl,
BastidasOyanedel JuanRodrigo,
Schmidt Jens Ejbye
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
chemsuschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.412
H-Index - 157
eISSN - 1864-564X
pISSN - 1864-5631
DOI - 10.1002/cssc.201501116
Subject(s) - seawater , environmental science , biomass (ecology) , arid , biofuel , wastewater , environmental chemistry , agronomy , environmental engineering , chemistry , ecology , biology
The large water consumption (1.9–5.9 m 3 water per m 3 of biofuel) required by biomass processing plants has become an emerging concern, which is particularly critical in arid/semiarid regions. Seawater, as a widely available water source, could be an interesting option. This work was to study the technical feasibility of using seawater to replace freshwater in the pretreatment of date palm leaflets, a lignocellulosic biomass from arid regions, for bioethanol production. It was shown that leaflets pretreated with seawater exhibited lower cellulose crystallinity than those pretreated with freshwater. Pretreatment with seawater produced comparably digestible and fermentable solids to those obtained with freshwater. Moreover, no significant difference of inhibition to Saccharomyces cerevisiae was observed between liquids from pretreatment with seawater and freshwater. The results showed that seawater could be a promising alternative to freshwater for lignocellulose biorefineries in coastal and/or arid/semiarid areas.