Ethanol Production from Hydrothermal Pretreated Empty Fruit Bunches

Abstract

Separate hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF) is the common process in producing ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass. Nowadays, simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) process has been seen as potential process for producing ethanol with shortens process time with higher yield of ethanol. Hence, in the current work, the utilization of empty fruit bunches (EFB) in SSF process was studied. In order to improve saccharification reactivity of EFB, hydrothermal pretreatment at 180 and 220 °C was used to pretreat EFB. The findings showed that SSF has the potential in producing ethanol from EFB.