(594b) Study of Fermentation Inhibitor Removal Using Zeolites

Diminishing fossil fuel reserve has brought researcher's attention to lignocellulosic biomass as a sustainable energy source. Ethanol and other useful chemicals can be produced using this renewable biomaterial. However, during the hydrolysis of the biomass, toxic fermentation inhibitors are produced. 5-Hydroxymethylfurfuraldehyde (HMF), furfural and vanillin are most commonly studied compounds for their inhibition effect during the fermentation process. In literature, several methods have been reported to pretreat these inhibitors and enhance ethanol productivity.

In this work, we use appropriately chosen zeolites for the pretreatment of hydrolyzate in order to remove HMF and furfural by preferential adsorption from aqueous solution. Ideal Adsorbed Solution Theory (IAST) is used to calculate adsorption isotherm for mixtures using single component adsorption data. The predictions are compared with the experimental adsorption isotherms for aqueous mixtures of HMF, furfural and xylose. The potential for recovering the inhibitors for further use as industrially valuable compounds by preferential adsorption on zeolites is also demonstrated.