ABSTRACT
Bioethanol is considered an alternative to petroleum. It can be easily produced from agricultural products (Nikolić et al., 2010), such as corn meal and sugarcane. However, bioethanol production from such biomass competes with food suppliers and thereby causes food shortages and price increases. Lignocellulosic materials, such as forest and agricultural residues, are a potential alternative feedstock for the production of bioethanol because their use would not affect the food supply. However, lignocellulosic biomass contains a greater amount of lignin and complex polysaccharides than starch and monosaccharides. These features make lignocellulosic biomass difficult to be hydrolyzed to fermentable sugars that can then be bioconverted into ethanol, resulting in high costs for ethanol production.
