Acceleration of biodetoxification on dilute acid pretreated lignocellulose feedstock by aeration and the consequent ethanol fermentation evaluation

BACKGROUND: Biodetoxification by the fungus Amorphotheca resinae ZN1 provides an effective way of inhibitor removal from pretreated lignocellulose feedstock and has been applied in the process of ethanol, biolipids, and lactic acid production. However, the long-time used and the consumption of considerable xylose in the pretreated materials reduced the process efficiency. The improvements of biodetoxification should be made to enhance the production of biochemical from lignocellulosic materials. RESULTS: This study reported an acceleration method of A. resinae ZN1-based biodetoxification on the corn stover (CS) feedstock pretreated using dry dilute acid pretreatment. Under proper aeration and well-mixing condition, the conversion rate of furfural, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), acetic acid, and typical phenolic compounds were significantly accelerated by more than twofolds faster, which resulted in the reduction of biodetoxification time from 96 h in the conventional process to 36 h. Simultaneous saccharification and ethanol fermentation assay on accelerated biodetoxification of the dry dilute acid pretreated CS feedstock achieved the similar ethanol titer (48.56 g/L of 36 h’ accelerated biodetoxification vs. 50.00 g/L of 4 days’ conventional biodetoxification) and yield (58.10 vs. 59.63 %). Substrate priority of inhibitors to sugars by A. resinae ZN1 was discovered and considerable xylose was reserved in the accelerated biodetoxification. Cell growth of A. resinae fungus in liquid medium and on pretreated CS solids revealed that the enhanced aeration enhanced the biodetoxification rate rather than the cell growth rate. Accelerated inhibitor conversion might come from the increased supply of cofactors of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate from the step of aldehyde inhibitors to the corresponding acids, instead of cell mass increase. CONCLUSION: Accelerated biodetoxification reduced the period of biodetoxification and retained the xylose components in the pretreated CS, which provided a practical method on improving process efficiency for cellulosic ethanol production from severe pretreated lignocellulose feedstock. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13068-016-0438-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.