The purpose of the present work is the evaluation of Cynara cardunculus L. potential in terms of ethanol production from lignocellulosic feedstock for industrial purposes. After a steam explosion (SE) pretreatment at different severity conditions, to obtain the dissolution of hemicellulose and the separation between cellulose and lignin, two different processes were tested: separate hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF) and semi-simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSSF). The enzymatic hydrolysis was carried out with ™Ctec2 cellulase enzyme and fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast.

The results showed slightly better performances by SSSF process compared to SHF, especially at low severity conditions, with a maximum overall ethanol yield of 13.64 g of ethanol/100 g of raw material. For the SHF process the best overall ethanol yield achieved was 13.17 g of ethanol/100 g of raw materials. In addition, the SSSF process required at least 24 h less than the SHF to achieve the same final ethanol concentration for every severity condition tested.