Bioethanol Production from Sugarcane Grown in Heavy Metal-Contaminated Soils
Field and laboratory experiments were conducted to evaluate the feasibility of bioethanol production using the juice of sugarcane grown in heavy metal-contaminated soils. The results suggest that the sugar concentration was not adversely affected when the sugarcane was grown in the heavy metal-contaminated soil. Although the juice of sugarcane grown in contaminated soil contained elevated levels of heavy metals, sugar fermentation and ethanol production were not adversely affected when five selected yeast species were used to mediate the processes. The preliminary research findings obtained from this study have implications for developing cost-effective technologies for simultaneous bioethanol production and soil clean-up using heavy metal-contaminated soils for energy sugarcane farming.
According to researches in over twenty years about detoxification of cottonseed meal by microorganism, effects of microorganism strains and solid state fermentation technology to detoxification of free gossypol were summarized, and application effects of detoxified cottonseed meal in animal feed were also discussed. At last, research areas in the future were predicted.