Even though bioethanol production is common among certain
species, filamentous fungi are not well known for their abilities.
Numerous fungi are able to produce low concentrations of bioethanol
compared to S.cerevisiae, under O2 limited conditions.
Many of them have various enzymes such as xylanase, cellulase and
amylase complexes that enable the simultaneous saccharification
and fermentation with one organism. Stevenson and Weimer [8]
screened the environment for fungal strains capable of this conversion
when grown on minimal medium and it was observed that
a member of the genus Trichoderma isolated from cow dung was
able to produce 0.4 g/L bioethanol initially. In another study conducted
by Skory et al. [9] bioethanol producing filamentous fungi
were screened by testing nineteen Aspergillus species for their efficiency
of converting glucose, xylose and cellulose to bioethanol, it
was found that one strain, Aspergillus oryzae, reached nearly 100%
theoretical bioethanol yield from 50 g/l glucose. In the study of
Karimi et al. [25] Mucor indicus, Rhizopus oryzae, and S. cerevisiae
were investigated and compared with pure cellulose for the production
of bioethanol. They determined that R.oryzae had the best
bioethanol yield (74%) followed by M.indicus (68%), levels lower
than the maximum bioethanol yield obtained in the current study