Using low carbon footprint high-pressure carbon dioxide in bioconversion of aspen branch waste for sustainable bioethanol production

An innovative approach was developed by incorporating high-pressure CO₂ into the separate hydrolysis-fermentation of aspen leftover branches, aiming to enhance the bioethanol production efficiency. The high-pressure CO₂ significantly increased the 72-h enzymatic hydrolysis yield of converting aspen into glucose from 53.8% to 82.9%. The hydrolysis process was performed with low enzyme loading (10 FPU g⁻¹ glucan) with the aim of reducing the cost of fuel bioethanol production. The ethanol yield from fermentation of the hydrolyzed glucose using yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) was 8.7 g L^–1, showing increment of 10% compared with the glucose control. Techno-economic analysis indicated that the energy consumption of fuel bioethanol production from aspen branch chips was reduced by 35% and the production cost was cut 44% to 0.615 USD L^–1, when 68 atm CO₂ was introduced into the process. These results furtherly emphasized the low carbon footprint of this sustainable energy production approach.