Statistical Optimization of Saccharification of Alkali Pretreated Wheat Straw for Bioethanol Production

In this study saccharification of alkali treated wheat straw was optimized by Box-Behnken design using three variables at three levels. FTIR, XRD and Scanning electron microscopy were used to study the morphological and structural changes caused by pretreatment. A 2(3) factorial design was used for experiments and data was analyzed by second order polynomial regression model. Under optimized condition of 2 % wheat straw, 0.5 % enzyme concentration and 6 h of time period resulted in 40.15 % saccharification of wheat straw. The saccharified material was fermented with Saccharomyces cerevisiae which revealed that 96 h of fermentation period was best for maximum specific growth rate and specific ethanol yield.