Abstract
Experimental test of pretreatment for cellulosic ethanol production from rice straw with supercritical dimethyl ether (DME) was carried out. Finely-milled rice straw shreds were soaked in water-containing supercritical DME at 140℃, 40MPa for 45 minutes, to liberate the cellulose and hemicellulose from the lignin seal and to hydrolyze them. Componential analysis by HPLC was made to determine the saccharification. The result shows that monosaccharide such as glucose and fructose was produced although the saccharification was estimated to be only 1wt%, which suggests the possibility of cellulose liberation.
