Bioethanol production from water-soluble and structural carbohydrates of normal and high sugary corn stovers harvested at three growth stages

In the current practice of generating ethanol from corn stover (CS), mostly cellulose is converted into ethanol, and water-soluble carbohydrates (WSCs) and/or hemicellulose fractions are often discarded. This incomplete conversion of fermentable components consequently lowers the final ethanol yield of CS. Normal corn stover (NCS) that is commonly used in the stover-based ethanol production, contains poor amounts of WSCs, and eventually, it is not attractive to conduct a separate extraction of WSCs from NCS. Alternatively, high sugary stover (HSS) could be a promising feedstock system over NCS for particularly its excellent sugar content. This study investigated the effects of converting both water-soluble and structural carbohydrates on ethanol production, by comparing the ethanol yields of HSS and NCS obtained from four…