Corncobs pretreated with H2SO4, HNO3, and H3PO4 were compared to evaluate the fermentation ability of Clostridium beijerinckii TISTR 1461 to produce biobutanol via acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation. It was found that the hydrolysate from H3PO4 pretreatment could be used as a substrate without any inhibitor removal methods. However, in terms of sugar yield, it gave the lowest total sugars in both pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis. Response surface methodology was applied to optimize enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated corncobs. The optimized conditions reduced the consumption of enzymes and hydrolysis time to 7.68 FPU/g biomass and 63.88 hr, respectively, and yielded 51.82 g/L reducing sugars. The Celluclast 1.5 L and Novozyme 188 enzyme ratio were varied to maximize the hydrolyzed sugars. The ABE fermentation, using substrate from phosphoric acid pretreatment of corncobs, with 10 g/L glucose supplementation produced 11.64 g/L of total ABE, which was close to the control experiment using synthetic medium. This study showed that corncobs pretreated with phosphoric acid could potentially be used as a substrate without using a detoxification process.
Keywords: ABE fermentation; Clostridium beijerinckii; RSM; acid pretreatment; corncobs; enzymatic saccharification.