Álvarez Pallín, MiguelGonzález Rodríguez, SandraEibes González, Gemma MaríaLópez Abelairas, MaríaMoreira Vilar, María TeresaLema Rodicio, Juan ManuelLu Chau, Thelmo Alejandro2022-08-302022-08-302022Pallín, M.Á., González-Rodríguez, S., Eibes, G. et al. Towards industrial application of fungal pretreatment in 2G biorefinery: scale-up of solid-state fermentation of wheat straw. Biomass Conv. Bioref. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-022-02319-12190-6815http://hdl.handle.net/10347/29170Fungal pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass for bioethanol production is an environmental-friendly alternative to steam explosion. However, this biological pretreatment has been tested on a small scale, where most of the typical problems of solid-state fermentations (SSF), such as limited aeration or temperature control, are not observed. The main objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of the fungal pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass (wheat straw) at a demonstration scale using the white-rot fungus Irpex lacteus to improve straw digestibility. Different configurations were evaluated for the design of a 22 L SSF reactor, but a versatile vertical design that can operate as a packed-bed and as a tray reactor was selected. The wheat straw digestibility obtained in the SSF bioreactor after 21 days of pretreatment (60.6%) was similar to that achieved on a small scale (57.9%). In addition, the most common online monitoring variables (temperature and CO2 production) correlate with the fungal action on wheat straw. As well as the weight loss, obtaining comparable results at flask and reactor scale (30 and 34.5%, respectively)eng© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/BioethanolLignocellulosic biomass pretreatmentLigninolytic fungusSolid-state fermentationBioprocess scale-upjournal article10.1007/s13399-022-02319-12190-6823open access