A comparison of the production of ethanol between simultaneous saccharification and fermentation and separate hydrolysis and fermentation using unpretreated cassava pulp and enzyme cocktail.

The processes of separate hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF) and simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) were employed using Saccharomyces cerevisiae for the production of ethanol from cassava pulp without any pretreatment. A combination of amylase, cellulase, cellobiase, and glucoamylase produced the highest levels of ethanol production in both the SHF and the SSF method. A temperature of 37 °C, a pH of 5.0, and an inoculum size of 6% were the optimum conditions for SSF. For the batch process at a pulp concentration of 20%, ethanol production levels from SHF and SSF were the highest, at 23.51 and 34.67 g L(-1) respectively, but in the fed-batch process, the levels of ethanol production from SHF and SSF rose to 29.39 and 43.25 g L(-1) respectively, which were 25% and 24.7% higher than those of the batch process. Thus SSF using the fed-batch provided a more efficient method for the utilization of cassava pulp.