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Abstract
Recently Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum Schumach) has been recognized to meet the requirement of lignocellulosic bioethanol production, because it has low lignin-content and a relatively high herbage mass per year and per area. Therefore, pretreatment, saccharification, and fermentation processes for ethanol production from Napier grass have been extensively studied. As pretreatment method, acid, alkali, PBHW (pressurized batch hot water), and LMAA (low-moisture anhydrous ammonia) pretreatments were reviewed. As saccharification and fermentation process, saccharification followed by co-fermentation of hexose and pentose, simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) followed by pentose fermentation, simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation (SSCF) process were proposed. The SSCF was most advantageous process since the SSCF can prevent contamination risks of other microorganism and can construct simple processing procedure. An example of ethanol production from Napier grass was a combination process of LMAA-pretreatment with SSCF which was performed for of LMAA-treated Napier grass at 36 for 96 h using cellulase, xylanase, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Escherichia coli KO11. The ethanol yield reached 74.1%. Thus, Napier grass was thought to be a promising biomass for ethanol production.