초록
<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>Present work is focused mainly on recovering maximum amount of soluble pentose and hexose sugars separately, direct from the kans grass (lignocellulosic biomass) by a novel fractional hydrolysis process (pretreatment + hydrolysis + detoxification) with minimum toxic products generation. Effect of biomass loading and preheating time on the fractional hydrolysis process was studied along with various strategies up to 30% H<SUB>2</SUB>SO<SUB>4</SUB> (v/v) to reduce the number of stages for acid use minimisation. 84.88% of total reducing sugar present in the kans grass biomass was extracted as separate pentose and hexose sugar fractions with negligible toxics. <I>Zymomonas mobilis</I> and <I>Scheffersomyces shehatae</I> were used during co-culture fermentation; 92.13% of the sugar present in xylose-rich fraction (initial sugar: 21.87 g/L) and 96.32% of glucose-rich fraction (initial sugar: 40.32 g/L) were utilised to produce 25.0 g/L ethanol from the kans grass biomass hydrolysate; thereby achieving 78.6% of the maximum theoretical ethanol production with an average yield of 0.435.</P> <P><B>Highlights</B></P> <P> <UL> <LI> Fractional hydrolysis (Total time: 6 h) = Pretreatment + Hydrolysis + Detoxification. </LI> <LI> Pentose and hexose sugar were obtained as separate fractions, direct from the biomass. </LI> <LI> 84.88% of total reducing sugars were recovered from kans grass biomass. </LI> <LI> Average ethanol yield coefficient (YP/S) was 0.435 in kans grass hydrolysate media. </LI> <LI> 78.6% of the maximum theoretical ethanol was produced from the hydrolysate. </LI> </UL> </P> <P><B>Graphical abstract</B></P> <P>[DISPLAY OMISSION]</P>