Modeling simultaneous saccharification and fermentation of softwood

Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of wood has been modeled for the past 15–20 years, but the substrates used for model evaluation have so far not included pretreated softwood. In the present study, data from lab-scale batch SSF of SO₂-impregnated, steam-pretreated spruce chips were used to evaluate a model found in the literature. The model, which was somewhat modified, consists of a number of nonlinear, coupled ordinary differential equations, which were solved numerically. Some parameter values were fitted to data by use of least-squares minimization. A difficulty in parameter estimation was the lack of cellobiose measurements, something that was relieved by adding assumptions about parameter relations. The simulated concentration profiles agreed well with the measured concentrations of glucose and ethanol. It is therefore concluded that the basic model features apply to softwood SSF. The model predicts rate saturation with respect to enzyme concentration at concentrations above 60 FPU/g cellulose, although this was not observed in the experimental data, which only comprised enzyme concentrations up to 32 FPU/g cellulose.