• Energy Research

A cost efficient synergistic strategy combining mild alkaline pretreatment (0.5-5% NaOH at 70 °C for 60 min) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) blocking of lignin was evaluated for effective conversion of poplar. The highest glucose yield of 69.2% was obtained for 5% alkaline pretreated sample, which was 4.4 times that of untreated sample. The enhanced enzymatic hydrolysis was attributed to significant hemicelluloses removal with limited delignification. Delignification mainly occurred in secondary wall, leading to more open cell wall structure, thus facilitating better transport of enzyme. Hemicelluloses removal helped split adjacent microfibrils, thus increased the specific sites for cellulase binding. After BSA addition in enzymatic hydrolysis, cellulose conversion further improved to 78.4% with 33% reduction of cellulase dosage due to decreased non-specific adsorption of cellulase on residual lignin. The utilization of synergistic alkaline pretreatment - BSA strategy may improve the overall economics of biomass conversion and successful commercial implementation of biorefineries.

To improve the neutral DES (choline chloride/glycerol) pretreatment performance, three environmentally friendly heteropoly acids (phosphotungstic, phosphomolybdic and silicotungstic acids) were used as catalysts. Pretreatment with silicotungstic acid at 120 °C for 3 h resulted in 97.3% of enzymatic digestibility at an enzyme loading of 15FPU/g substrate, which was approximately eight times more than that of raw samples. More importantly, 80% of glucose yield was obtained within 12 h. Simultaneously, 81.8% of ethanol yield was achieved in the SSSF process. The efficient conversion was ascribed to the significant delignification (89.5%), which resulted in the exposure of more accessible specific surface area. This was attributed to that the proton (H+) from heteropoly acids could significantly contribute to the lignin degradation. Intriguingly, trace acetic acid (0.39 g/L) and HMF (0.21-0.95 g/L) in the pretreatment liquor were produced without any significant deleterious effects. These discoveries provide new insights for efficient biomass conversion under mild conditions.

The recalcitrance in grasses varies according to cell type and tissue. In this study, dilute acid pretreatment was performed on Miscanthus×giganteus internodes that include rind and pith regions which showing heterogeneous structural and chemical changes. Pretreatment on pith effectively hydrolyzed 73.33% hemicelluloses and separated cohesive cell walls from the compound middle lamella due to lignin migration. Lignin droplets with an average diameter of 49.5±29.3nm were concurrently coalesced on wall surface, that in turn exposed more microfibrils deep in walls to be enzymatically hydrolyzed reaching 82.55%. By contrast, the rind with a relatively intergrated cell structure was covered by larger lignin droplets (101.2±44.1nm) and filled with inaccessible microfibrils limiting enzymatic sacchrification (31.50%). Taken together, the cellulose digestibility of biomass was not majorly influenced by cellulose crystallinity, while it was strongly correlated with the positive effects of hemicelluloses degradation, lignin redistribution, cellulose exposure and loosening cell wall structure.

Synergistic fungal pretreatment involving white-rot and brown-rot fugal pretreatment has shown great potential for enhancing the yield of sugars from biomass time-effectively and environmentally benign. In this work, the effects of this integrated fungal pretreatment on lignin characteristics and thermal behavior of corncob were examined in the view of whole plant valorization. The results show that an efficient deconstruction of lignin was achieved by white-rot fungus, and subsequent brown-rot fungus promoted the preferential breakdown of guaiacyl units, further enhancing lignin extraction efficiency (62.3%). Consequently, less phenolic hydroxyl, methoxyl, tricin, ester-linked p-coumaric acid, more carboxylic acid, ratio of syringyl to guaiacyl units, β-O-4' linkage and molecular weight were found in W-BL. Thermal stability was improved and the increased phenol and alkyl-phenols contents in pyrolysis products demonstrated that synergistic fungal pretreatment definitely improved the lignin oil quality. These discoveries provide new insights into set strategy for microbial screening, pretreatment and lignin processing.