Effect of fermention on ethanol production from fresh sweet corn stalks.

Corn stalks are an important resource that is abundant and cheap for fuel ethanol production.This study took curtal fresh sweet corn stalk as raw material with,yeasts(J),lactic acid bacteria(R)and cellulase(E)as additives.The additive treatments were:control(no additive),J,JR(J+R),JE(J+E),JER(J+E+ R),MJ(J addition after sterilizing)and MJER(JER addition after sterilizing).The treated materials were sealed,and fermented for 10,20,30and 40days to study the optimum fermentation time and additives for ethanol production.The contents of water soluble carbohydrates(WSC)in sweet corn stalk significantly decreased with prolonging of fermentation times and were lower in the J,JR and MJ treatments than in the control(P 0.05).Fermentation time and additives had no significant effect on cellulose and hemicellulose contents.The ethanol yield tended to decrease with fermentation time from 10to 40days and was the highest(17.89% DM) under the following conditions:sterilized stalk and adding yeasts,fermenting for 10d.