See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/348900732

Second Generation Bioethanol Production from Lignocellulosic Waste and Its

Future Perspectives: A Review

Article · January 2018

CITATION READS

1 482

2 authors:

Nisha Sharma Nivedita Sharma

Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry
64 PUBLICATIONS 1,699 CITATIONS 233 PUBLICATIONS 913 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Nisha Sharma on 30 January 2021.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2018) 7(5): 1285-1290

International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences

ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 7 Number 05 (2018)
Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com

Review Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2018.705.155

Second Generation Bioethanol Production from Lignocellulosic

Waste and Its Future Perspectives: A Review

Nisha Sharma* and Nivedita Sharma

Microbiology Research Laboratory, Department of Basic Science, Dr Y S Parmar University

of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan (HP) – 173230, India

*Corresponding author

ABSTRACT

Lignocellulosic biomass bioethanol production, commonly referred to as Second

Keywords Generation biofuels, using agricultural residues, forest residues, energy feedstocks,
Lignocellulosic biomass, municipalities, and other waste crop solids is considered as a promising alternative energy
Bioethanol, Second source in order to minimize reliance on limited fossil sources, greenhouse gas emissions,
generation
and environmental pollutions. Bioethanol from food based materials may lead to „„food vs
Article Info fuel” conflict with the increase of world population. Corn and sugar based ethanol are
promising substitute to gasoline production in transportation sector, are not sufficient to
Accepted: replace global fossil fuel consumption each year. Lignocellulosic biomass serves as a
12 April 2018
potential source for the production of second generation bioethanol. The present paper
Available Online:
10 May 2018
represents an overview on the bioethanol production from different substrates. It reviews
information about current practices and also suggests future prospects.

Introduction world (Xu et al., 2009). The demand for

energy is growing globally due to expanding
Biofuels are referred to solid, liquid or human population and increase in industrial
gaseous fuels derived from organic matter. prosperity. The conventional fossil such as
They are generally divided into primary and oil, coal and natural gas still constitute the
secondary biofuels. While primary biofuels major source of energy. The continuous
such as fuel wood are used in an unprocessed utilization of fossil fuels over the years has
form primarily for heating, cooking or severely augmented the concentration of
electricity production, secondary biofuels greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of earth
such as bioethanol and biodiesel are produced (Ballesteros et al., 2006). Depleting fossil
by processing biomass and are able to be used reserves and increasing demand for energy
in vehicles and various industrial processes. together with environmental concerns have
Today‟s society is based on the use of fossil led to focused research on the development of
resources for transportation fuels and alternative fuels which are eco-friendly, bio-
petrochemicals. Energy sources and their degradable and economical. The use of
utilization determine the economic status and renewable resources to produce liquid
growth of developing countries all over the biofuels offer attractive solutions to reducing

1285
 Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2018) 7(5): 1285-1290

greenhouse gas emissions, decreasing reliance surplus alcohol as a blending agent or an

on foreign oils, addressing energy security oxygenate in gasoline. The 5% ethanol-
concerns, strengthening rural and agricultural doped-petrol in vehicles now has been
economies and increasing the sustainability of confirmed by Society for Indian Automobile
the world transportation system (Demirbas, Manufacturers (SIAM). State Governments of
2007). Bioethanol is one such dominant major sugar producing States and the
global renewable transport biofuel which can representatives of sugar/distillery industries
readily substitute fossil fuels. Conventionally, also confirmed availability/capacity to
bioethanol has been produced from sucrose produce ethanol. In the 2006 ethanol demand
and starch rich feedstocks (edible agricultural was 0.64 billion liters at 5% gasoline doping
crops and products) known as first generation levels while the approximately about 1.5
bioethanol; however this substrate conflicts billion liters will be required for 10%
with food and feed production. As an blending of entire gasoline sold in India
alternative to first generation bioethanol, (Tiwari et al., 2015). This demand will be
currently there is much focus on advancing a projected to 2.2 billion liters in 2017. Indian
cellulosic bioethanol concept that utilizes alcohol industry is fairly mature with 295
lignocellulosic residues from agricultural distilleries established all across the country
crops and residues (such as bagasse, straw, with an annual capacity of 3.2 billion liters.
stover, stems, leaves and deoiled seed
residues). Lignocellulosic materials are cheap First generation Vs second generation
renewable resources, available in large
quantities (Millati et al., 2002). Most current bioethanol production processes
Lignocellulosic waste materials obtained from utilize more readily degradable biomass
energy crops, wood and agricultural residues feedstocks such as cereals and sugarcane
represent the most abundant global source of juices. However the utilization of edible
renewable biomass (Lin and Tanaka, 2006). agricultural crops exclusively for biofuel
Efficient conversion of lignocellulosic production conflict with food and feed
biomass into bioethanol remains an area of production (Wheals et al., 1999). The
active research in terms of pretreatment of the bioethanol produced from these sucrose and
biomass to fractionate its constituents starch containing feedstocks is classified as
(cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin), break- first generation bioethanol and those produced
down of cellulose and hemicellulose into utilizing cellulosic feedstock is second
hexose and pentose sugars and co- generation bioethanol (Muktham et al., 2016).
fermentation of the sugars to ethanol. The Lignocellulosic biomass represents a
present review describes the overall promising resource for bioethanol production
conversion process of lignocellulosic waste which is renewable in nature. Not only an
into bio-ethanol and economics and energy source, biomass is also a promising
environment involved in bioethanol raw material for the production of chemicals
production from lignocellulosic waste. (Werpy et al., 2004). The advent of second
generation biofuels is intended to produce
Current status in India fuels from lignocellulosic biomass, the woody
part of plants that do not compete with food
India is now a days showing interest towards production. Sources include agricultural
use of ethanol as an automotive fuel. A residues, forest harvesting residues or wood
tremendous contribution has been made by processing waste such as leaves, straw or
distilleries in India. They are using this wood chips as well as the non-edible

1286
 Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2018) 7(5): 1285-1290

components of corn or sugarcane (Brennam et for the pretreatments of biomass; these

al., 2010). Therefore, third generation includes hot water treatment (Weil et al.,
biofuels derived from microalgae are 1997), steam explosion (Sun and Cheng,
considered to be a viable alternative energy 2002), ammonia fibre explosion (Mc Millan
resource that is devoid of the major et al., 1994), organic solvent treatment (Pan et
drawbacks associated with first and second al., 2005), acid and alkaline treatments and
generation biofuels (Nigam and Singh, 2010). biological pretreatments. (ii) Enzymatic
Microalgae are able to produce 15–300 times hydrolysis: Breakdown of polymeric
more oil for biodiesel production than carbohydrates into simple sugars that can be
traditional crops on an area basis. This article fermented by microorganisms into ethanol.
focuses on microalgae as a potential source of (iii) Fermentation: Conversion of
biodiesel. The species of algae suitable for carbohydrates into ethanol by selected
lipids production are the microalgae ethanologens. (iv) Downstream processing:
(phytoplankton or microphytes). The macro Recovery of ethanol from fermentation broth
algae or seaweed, on the other hand have and management of the remaining streams.
many commercial values but not for lipid
production. Other commercial values of algae Microorganisms for bioethanol production
include the making of food ingredients such
as omega3 fatty acids, fertilizer, chemical Ethanol is produced primarily by the
feedstock, pharmaceuticals and bioplastics. A fermentation of glucose liberated from
microalga is classified as diatoms cellulosic feedstock using fermentative
(bacillariophyceae), green algae microorganisms, principally yeasts,
(chlorophyceae), goldenbrown Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Demirbas, 2005).
(chrysophyceae) and blue-green algae The most common microbe used has been S.
(cyanophyceae) (Karthikeyan et al., 2012). cerevisiae which, as Lin and Tanaka, (2006)
produced ethanol at concentrations as high as
Bioconversion processes 18% in the fermentation broth. It is a
relatively easy microbe to handle as it is
Existing ethanol production processes have: generally recognized as safe. Zymomonas
Separate hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF) mobilis, a Gram-negative bacterium, can also
(Sharma and Sharma, 2016a), Simultaneous be used in fermentation of glucose into
saccharification and fermentation (SSF), ethanol (Dien et al., 2003). Biomass formed
Simultaneous saccharification and co- during fermentation using S. cerevisiae and
fermentation (SSCF) (Sharma and Sharma, Zymomonas mobilis are recognized as safe for
2016b), consolidated bioprocessing step fodder, making these organisms suitable for
(CBP). Consolidated is cost effective process metabolic engineering for application in co-
as the processes namely enzyme production, fermentation of both pentose and hexose
hydrolysis and fermentation taking place sugars. Recent reports suggest that some
within the same bioreactor making the capital white rot fungi namely Agaricus bisporus,
cost lower (Olson et al., 2012). Bioethanol Bjerkandera adusta and Iprex lacteus are able
production from lignocellulosic biomass to produce ethanol from glucose under semi-
involves various steps: (i) Pretreatment: The aerobic conditions (Saha et al., 2016). Sharma
main aim of lignocellulosic biomass and Sharma (2016) used various combinations
pretreatment is to separate the biomass of ethanologens i.e. monoculture as well as
components i.e. cellulose, hemicellulose and co-culture and the best co-culture
lignin. A number of techniques are available combination was S. cerevisiae + Pichia

1287
 Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2018) 7(5): 1285-1290

stipitis (18.47g/l ethanol with 72.46% Future perspectives

fermentation efficiency) (Sharma and Sharma,
2016c) Strategies for improving fermentative ethanol
production have focused almost exclusively
Enzymes in bioethanol production on the development of processes based on the
(cellulases) utilization of the carbohydrate fraction of
lignocellulosic material. These so-called
Enzymatic saccharification of lignocellulosic „second-generation‟ technologies require
materials such as sugarcane bagasse, corncob, metabolically engineered production strains
rice straw, switch grass, saw dust, and forest that possess a high degree of catabolic
residues by cellulases for biofuel production versatility and are homoethanologenic. For
is perhaps the most popular application third generation bioethanol from macro algae,
currently being investigated. Cellulases are especially from brown algae still requires a
the enzymes involved in the degradation of detailed study of optimization in the steps of
lignocellulosic biomass (Pandey, 2015). hydrolysis and fermentation. However there
are still some challenges hampering its
Bioconversion of lignocellulosic materials production and consequent
into useful and higher value products commercialization.
normally requires multistep processes. These
processes include; pretreatment, hydrolysis of Acknowledgment
the polymers to produce readily metabolizable
molecules (e.g., hexose and pentose sugars), This study was financially supported by
bioconversion of these smaller molecules to Department of Science and Technology
support microbial growth and/or produce (DST), New Delhi in the form of “INSPIRE
chemical products, and the separation and FELLOWSHIP”, JRF/SRF [IF-110299] and
purification of the desired products. authors gratefully acknowledge the financial
support given by DST, New Delhi- India.
Advantages/uses of bioethanol
References
Bioethanol has mostly been used as a bio fuel
for transport, as it is blended with petrol at Ballesteros, I., Negro, M. J., Oliva, J. M.,
5% and in some countries at 10% level. Cabanas, A., Manzanares, P. and
Ethanol is also being used to formulate a Ballesteros, M. 2006. Ethanol
blend with diesel fuel, known as "E-Diesel". production from steam explosion
It is used, for example, in cosmetics, many pretreated wheat straw. Twenty seventh
perfumes, colognes, mouthwash, aftershave symposium on Biotechnology for fuels
lotions, soaps, shampoo etc. and chemicals. Springer. 496-508.
Brennam, L. and Owende, P. 2010. Biofuels
A number of other chemicals such as ethyl from microalgae- A review of
esters, ethyl acetate, extractants, antifreeze technologies for production, processing
and intermediates in the synthesis of various and extraction of biofuels and co-
organic chemicals are formed by ethanol. products. Renew. Sust. Energ. Rev. 14,
Ethyl alcohol is always produced by 557-577.
fermentation of some suitable material to Demirbas, A. 2005. Bioethanol from
form beer, wine, or distilled spirits of various cellulosic materials: A renewable motor
kinds (Tiwari et al., 2015).

1288
 Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2018) 7(5): 1285-1290

fuel from biomass. Energ. Sources. 27, pulping: preliminary evaluation of

327-337. process streams for manufacture of fuel
Demirbas, A. 2007. Progress and Recent grade ethanol and co-products.
Trends in Biofuels. Prog. Energ. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 90, 473-481.
Combust. 33, 1-8. Pandey, S. 2015.Cellulases in conversion of
Dien, B. S., Cotta, M. A. and Jeffries, T. W. lignocellulosic waste into second
2003. Bacteria engineered for fuel generation biofuel. International
ethanol production: current status. Appl. Journal of Advanced Research. 3(7),
Microbiol. Biotechnol. 63, 258-266. 392-399.
Karthikeyan, S. 2012. A critical Review: Saha, B. C., Qureshi, N., Kennedy, G. J. and
Microalgae as a renewable source for Cotta, M. A. 2016. Biological
biofuel production. Int. J. Eng. Res. pretreatment of corn stover with white
Technol. 1 (4), 1-6. rot fungus for improved enzymatic
Lin, Y. and Tanaka, S. 2006. Ethanol hydrolysis. Int. Biodeter. Biodegr. 109,
fermentation from biomass resources: 29-35.
current state and prospects. Appl. Sharma, N. and Sharma, N. 2016a. Bioethanol
Microbiol. Biotechnol. 69 (6), 627-642. production from alkaline hydrogen
Mc Millan, J. D., Himmel, M. E., Baker, J. O. peroxide pretreated Populus deltoides
and Overend, R. P. 1994. Pretreatment wood using hydrolytic enzymes of
of lignocellulosic biomass. IN: Himmel, Bacillus stratosphericus N12 (M) and
M. E., Baker, J. O. and Overend, R. P., Bacillus altitudinis Kd1 (M) under
Eds., Enzymatic conversion of biomass different modes of separate hydrolysis
for fuels production. American and fermentation by mono culture and
Chemical Society, Washington D.C. co-culture combinations of
292-324. ethanologens. International Journal of
Millati, R., Niklasson, C. and Taherzadeh, M. Bioassays. 5(2), 4810-4816.
J. 2002. Effect of pH, time and Sharma, N. and Sharma, N. 2016b.
temperature of overliming on Bioethanol production under
detoxification of dilute acid simultaneous saccharification and
hydrolysates for fermentation by S. fermentation (SSF) and simultaneous
cerevisiae. Process. Biochem. 38 (4), saccharification and co- fermentation
515-522. (SSCF) as well as its scale up in a
Muktham, R., Bhargava, S. K., Bankupalli, S. stirred tank bioreactor. International
and Ball, A. S. 2016. A Review on 1st Journal of Innovative Research in
Nigam, P. S. and Singh, A. 2011. Production Science, Engineering and Technology.
of liquid biofuels from renewable 5(2), 1572-1576.
resources. Prog. Energ. Combust. 37, Sharma, N. and Sharma, N. 2016c. Bioethanol
52-58. production from NaOH+H2O2
Olson, D.G., Mc Bride, J. E., Shaw, A. J. and pretreated Populus deltoides wood using
Lynd, L. R. 2012. Recent progress in cocktail of in house and commercial
consolidated Bioprocessing. Current enzyme under four different modes of
Opinion in Biotechnology. 23, 396-405. separate hydrolysis and fermentation.
Pan, X., Arato, C., Gilkes, N., Gregg, D., World Journal of Pharmaceutical
Mabee, W., Pye, K., Xiao, Z. and Research. 5(2), 661-676.
Saddler, J. 2005. Biorefining of Sun, Y. and Chen, J. 2002. Hydrolysis of
softwoods using ethanol oganosolv lignocellulosic materials for ethanol

1289
 Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2018) 7(5): 1285-1290

production: A Review. Bioresour. Werpy, T. and Petersen, G. 2004. Top value

Technol. 83, 1-11. added chemicals from Biomass.
Tiwari G., Shivangi, Sharma, S. and Prasad, National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
R. 2015. Bioethanol production: Future Wheals, A. E., Basso, L.C., Alves, D. M. G.
Prospects from non- additional sources and Amorim, H. V. 1999. Fuel ethanol
in India. Int. J. Res. Biosci. 4 (4), 1-15. after 25 years. Trends. Biotechnol. 17,
Weil, J. R., Sarikaya, A., Rau, S. L., Goetz, J., 482-487.
Ladisch, C. M., Brewer, M., Xu, Y., and Liu, H. Y. 2009. Development
Hendrickson, R. and Ladisch, M. R. and expectation of the energy plant.
1997. Pretreatment of yellow poplar Chinese Agricultural Science Bulletin.
sawdust by pressure cooking in water. 25, 297-300.
Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol. 68, 21-40.

How to cite this article:

Nisha Sharma and Nivedita Sharma. 2018. Second Generation Bioethanol Production from
Lignocellulosic Waste and Its Future Perspectives: A Review. Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci.
7(05): 1285-1290. doi: https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2018.705.155

1290

View publication stats