a b s t r a c t
The production of ethanol from wheat straw (WS) by dilute acid pretreatment, bioabatement of fermentation
inhibitors by a fungal strain, and simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of the bioabated
WS to ethanol using an ethanologenic recombinant bacterium was studied at a pilot scale without
sterilization. WS (124.2 g/L) was pretreated with dilute H2SO4 in two parallel tube reactors at 160 C. The
inhibitors were bio-abated by growing the fungus aerobically. The maximum ethanol produced by SSF of
the bio-abated WS by the recombinant Escherichia coli FBR5 at pH 6.0 and 35 C was 36.0 g/L in 83 h with
a productivity of 0.43 g L1 h1. This value corresponds to an ethanol yield of 0.29 g/g of WS which is 86%
of the theoretical ethanol yield from WS. This is the first report on the production of ethanol by the
recombinant bacterium from a lignocellulosic biomass at a pilot scale