Yeast fermentation of hydrolysates from dilute acid pretreated olive tree biomass

Abstract

Olive tree biomass is one of the main agricultural residues especially in Mediterranean countries. It is a renewable, low cost and lacking of practical alternatives lignocellulosic feedstock whose use as raw material for ethanol production has been proposed. A special feature of olive tree biomass chemical composition is the high extractive content, up to 30% including 8% of free glucose. This fact makes that liquid fractions issued from pre-treatment (hydrolysates) have unusually high glucose content, together with other hemicellulosic sugars. The conversion into ethanol of these sugars is important from an economic point of view, contributing to the feasibility of the whole process.