• Energy Research

Lignocellulosic biomass is a sustainable source of renewable substrate to produce low carbon footprint energy and materials. Biomass conversion is usually performed in two steps: a biomass pretreatment for improving cellulose accessibility followed by enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose. In this study we investigated the efficiency of a bioextrusion pretreatment (extrusion in the presence of cellulase enzyme) for production of reducing sugars from corn crop agricultural residues. Our results demonstrate that bioextrusion increased the reducing sugar conversion yield by at least 94% at high solid/liquid ratio (14%-40%). Monitoring biomass surface with carbohydrate-binding modules (FTCM-depletion assay) revealed that well known negative impact of high solid/liquid ratio on conversion yield is not due to the lack of exposed cellulose which was abundant under such conditions. Bioextrusion was found to be less efficient on alkaline pretreated biomass but being a mild and solvent limiting pretreatment, it might help to minimize the waste stream.

Introducing enzymes during the extrusion process has been mainly used as new pretreatment techniques in the starch degradation process and, more recently, in the second generation bioethanol production. The technique, called the bioextrusion, is a special case of reactive extrusion. Starch and lignocellulose bioextrusion examples underline the good mixing capacities as a way to initiate the enzymatic reaction in high solid content conditions. Starch bioextrusion results show a low dextrinization yield but a real effect on the polymer size decrease which allows higher and faster subsequent saccharification. It also considerably reduced the recrystallization phenomenon that limits the saccharification efficiency. Bioextrusion of lignocellulose resulted in a better sugar production. Very short residence times limit the use of bioextrusion to a pretreatment technique. However, unique flexibility of the extrusion technique allows to subsequently pretreat, in the same extruder, with physical and/or chemical constraining conditions, followed by a milder bioextrusion.