Bioethanol manifests an extraordinary potential to overcome the severe energy crises and reliance on fossil fuels, yet it supports the sustainable and cost-effective production of fuels for automobile engines and contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other global climate-related challenges. The present study examines the potential of Mixed Lignocellulosic Biomass (MLB) as a sustainable feedstock for the consistent year-round production of bioethanol. The primary MLB sources considered in this research to underscore the significance of this heterogeneous strategy include sweet sorghum bagasse (SSB), sugarcane bagasse (SCB), and date palm trunk (DPT). Each of the three feedstocks, i.e., SSB, SCB, and DPT, were individually subjected to alkaline pretreatment, a step aimed at breaking down structural barriers and facilitating greater release of fermentable sugars during fermentation. Likewise, the alkaline-pretreated biomasses were subjected to simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) for 96 h, both individually as well as in various combined proportions. Individually, pretreated sweet sorghum bagasse (SSB) fibers produced the highest ethanol concentration, of 30.79 ± 0.44 g/L; an ethanol yield of 0.40 ± 0.62 g/g; an ethanol productivity of 0.42 ± 0.87 g/L/h; and a theoretical ethanol yield of 79.81% at 72 h. In contrast, the combination of MLB (50% of pretreated SSB and 50% of DPT fibers) produced a significantly higher ethanol concentration of 31.47 ± 0.57 g/L and an ethanol productivity of 0.653 ± 0.24 g/L/h in much less time, i.e., 48 h of SSF fermentation. The empirical data confirms that MLB offers a sustainable paradigm for ethanol biosynthesis by curtailing fermentation time and optimizing economic and operational efficacy.
Amjad et al. (2025) studied this question.