Fermentative Bioethanol Production Using Enzymatically Hydrolysed &i&Saccharina latissima&/i&

摘要

The increased demand for machinery and transport has led to an overwhelming increase in the use of fossil fuels in the last century. Concerning the economic and environmental concern, macroalgae with high fermentable polysaccharide content (mainly mannitol, cellulose and laminarin), can serve as an excellent alternative to food crops for bioethanol production, a renewable liquid fuel. In this study, Saccharina latissima , a brown macroalgae readily available on the Norwegian coast was used as the carbohydrate source for the fermentative production of bioethanol. The macroalgae harvested was found to contain 31.31 ± 1.73 g of reducing sugars per 100 g of dry Saccharina latissima upon enzymatic hydrolysis. The subsequent fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae produced an ethanol yield of 0.42 g of ethanol per g of reducing sugar, resulting in a fermentation efficiency of 84% as compared to the theoretical maximum. Using these results, an evaluation of the fermentation process has demonstrated that the brown macroalgae Saccharina latissima could become a viable bioethanol source in the future.