Cellulosic ethanol production using five commercial varieties of energycane

Energycane emerged as a promising feedstock for the sugar and alcohol industry to increase biomass productivity in the field, reduce production costs, and deliver plants with higher fiber content without compromising sucrose availability for fermentation. In this work, five energycane varieties (Vertix 2, 3, 7, 9, and 11) and one conventional sugarcane (RB92579) were used for cellulosic ethanol (E2G) production. Pretreatment was carried out by steam explosion under autohydrolysis conditions (195°C for 7.5 min), hydrolysis was performed with Cellic CTec3 with or without Cellic HTec3 supplementation (Novonesis) at 2 and 15 wt% water insoluble solids (WIS), and fermentation was carried out using industrial strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (CAT-1 and Celere-2L). Steam explosion promoted the selective removal of hemicelluloses, which were partially recovered in the pretreatment liquor (crude C5 stream) as mono and oligossacharides, and the lignin contained in pretreated solids was ethanol extractable. Among the five varieties involved in this study, Vertix 11 was the one with best performance, revealing a production potential of 7408 L·ha −1 E2G compared to 2456 L·ha −1 of the reference material based solely on C6 fermentation. However, when detoxified C5 streams were used to reconstitute the pretreatment whole slurry, E2G production was boosted to 11,035 L·ha −1 . • The potential of energycane for cellulosic ethanol (E2G) production has been revealed. • E2G was produced from 5 energycane varieties and 1 reference material (RB92579). • Vertix 11 had the best steam explosion and enzymatic hydrolysis performance. • Vertix 11 tripled the best C6 fermentation scenario of RB92579 using CAT-1. • Celere-2L produced 11,035 L·ha −1 E2G from C5/C6 Vertix 11 process streams.