Pretreatment and enzymatic saccharification of new phytoresource for bioethanol production from halophyte species

In this work, new halophyte plant biomass is proposed as raw material for bioenergy production. The bioconversion process of lignocellulosic materials into ethanol needs a pretreatment before enzymatic hydrolysis of vegetal material to increase the yield of fermentable sugars. Various mechanical and chemical pre-treatment processes were investigated in an attempt to facilitate the solubilization of large fraction of hemicelluloses. The fungi Trichoderma spp., Aspergillus niger, Penicillium italicum and Fusarium spp. have been developed on the halophyte plant, Juncus maritimes, producing polysaccharides hydrolases activities, i.e. endoglucanasecatalyses cellulose hydrolysis, and beta-glucosidasecatalyses hydrolysis of terminal non-reducing residues in beta-glucosides. The saccharification was carried out with an enzymatic preparation extracted from filamentous fungus Trichoderma spp. Experimental Doehlert design was performed to optimize the reducing sugars concentration. High sugar yields (8.5 g/L) were obtained using a small amount of the extracted enzyme without stirring. The highest enzymatic activities of endoglucanase and beta-glucosidases were produced by Trichoderma spp. at 22.12 and 0.07 U/mg, respectively. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.