Milled material was stored at room temperature in air-tight containers.
All chemicals including acid, bases, salts and analytical standards were of reagent grade or higher and purchased from
Sigma Chemical Co. (St. Louis, MO).
The cellulase blend Cellic CTec 2 was kindly supplied by Novozymes (Denmark).
For ethanol fermentations the S. cerevisiae strain Thermosacc Dry was kindly supplied by Lallemand (WI, USA) as an active dry preparation;
yeast extract and peptone were purchased from AMYL Media (VIC, Australia).