ABSTRACT

The constant consumption of gasoline is introducing environmental pollution as wastes from gasoline consumption are hazardous to the ozone layer, resulting to greenhouse effects and climate changes. Biofuel production is an unavoidable and important venture to mitigate this energy crisis.

The feedstock for this study was elephant grass, which underwent pretreatment to improve enzyme access to cellulose and hemicellulose, thereby enhancing hydrolysis efficiency. This process involves the enzymatic hydrolysis of elephant grass by an enzyme. In this study, cellulase was employed to breakdown elephant grass to produce reducing sugars.

 The results show that elephant grass contained 39% cellulose, 53% hemicellulose and 30% lignin. The reducing sugar content was 3.169 g/l and hydrolysis percentage of 30.59%. This study is a basis for further studies that may involve the synergistic effect of cellulase and other accessory enzymes to foster the production of greener fuels.