A demonstration study of ethanol production from sweet sorghum stems with advanced solid state fermentation technology

► An advanced solid state fermentation (ASSF) technology is successfully demonstrated. ► Ethanol can be cost-effectively produced from sweet sorghum stems by using ASSF. ► The fermentation time is only 24 h with ethanol yield of 90.5% of theoretical. ► Economics analysis of ASSF shows that feedstock accounts for 78% of the total cost. ► The scaling-up of continuous solid-state fermentation and distillation is feasible.