Kinetic modeling of xylan hydrolysis in co- and countercurrent liquid hot water flow-through pretreatments

Opportunities and challenges for flow-through hydrothermal pretreatment in advanced biorefineries

Hydrothermal pretreatment (HTP) using only water offers great potential to reduce the overall cost of the bioconversion process. However, traditional HTP performed in a batch has limitations in removing lignin and often needs to be performed under severe conditions to achieve reasonable pretreatment effects. Lignin left in the pretreated residue at these conditions is also highly condensed, thus possessing an even more adverse impact on the hydrolysis process, which requires high enzyme loadings. To address these technical challenges, HTP performed in a flow-through configuration was developed to simultaneously achieve near-complete hemicellulose recovery, high lignin removal and high sugar release. Despite facing challenges such as potentially large water usage, flow-through HTP still represents one of the most cost-effective and eco-friendly pretreatment methods. This review mainly covers the latest cutting-edge innovations of flow-through HTP along with structural and compositional changes of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin before and after pretreatment.

Severity factor kinetic model as a strategic parameter of hydrothermal processing (steam explosion and liquid hot water) for biomass fractionation under biorefinery concept

Hydrothermal processes are an attractive clean technology and cost-effective engineering platform for biorefineries based in the conversion of biomass to biofuels and high-value bioproducts under the basis of sustainability and circular bioeconomy. The deep and detailed knowledge of the structural changes by the severity of biomasses hydrothermal fractionation is scientifically and technological needed in order to improve processes effectiveness, reactors designs, and industrial application of the multi-scale target compounds obtained by steam explosion and liquid hot water systems. The concept of the severity factor [log₁₀ (R_o)] established>30 years ago, continues to be a useful index that can provide a simple descriptor of the relationship between the operational conditions for biomass fractionation in second generation of biorefineries. This review develops a deep explanation of the hydrothermal severity factor based in lignocellulosic biomass fractionation with emphasis in research advances, pretreatment operations and the applications of severity factor kinetic model.

Effective enzymatic in situ saccharification of bamboo shoot shell pretreated by dilute alkalic salts sodium hypochlorite/sodium sulfide pretreatment under the autoclave system

In this study, dilute alkali salts (0.6% NaClO, 0.067% Na₂S) pretreatment at 10% sulfidity under the autoclave system at 120°C for 40min was used for pretreating bamboo shoot shell (BSS). Furthermore, FT-IR, XRD and SEM were employed to characterize the changes in the cellulose structural characteristics (porosity, morphology, and crystallinity) of the pretreated BSS solid residue. After 72h, the reducing sugars and glucose from the enzymatic in situ hydrolysis of 50g/L pretreated BSS in dilute NaClO/Na₂S media could be obtained at 31.11 and 20.32g/L, respectively. Finally, the obtained BSS-hydrolysates containing alkalic salt NaClO/Na₂S resulted in slightly negative effects on the ethanol production. Glucose in BSS-hydrolysates was fermented from 20.0 to 0.17g/L within 48h, and an ethanol yield of 0.41g/g glucose, which represents 80.1% of the theoretical yield, was obtained. This study provided an effective strategy for potential utilization of BSS.

Utilization of Ionic Liquids in Lignocellulose Biorefineries as Agents for Separation, Derivatization, Fractionation, or Pretreatment

Ionic liquids (ILs) can play multiple roles in lignocellulose biorefineries, including utilization as agents for the separation of selected compounds or as reaction media for processing lignocellulosic materials (LCM). Imidazolium-based ILs have been proposed for separating target components from LCM biorefinery streams, for example, the dehydration of ethanol-water mixtures or the extractive separation of biofuels (ethanol, butanol) or lactic acid from the respective fermentation broths. As in other industries, ILs are potentially suitable for removing volatile organic compounds or carbon dioxide from gaseous biorefinery effluents. On the other hand, cellulose dissolution in ILs allows homogeneous derivatization reactions to be carried out, opening new ways for product design or for improving the quality of the products. Imidazolium-based ILs are also suitable for processing native LCM, allowing the integral benefit of the feedstocks via separation of polysaccharides and lignin. Even strongly lignified materials can yield cellulose-enriched substrates highly susceptible to enzymatic hydrolysis upon ILs processing. Recent developments in enzymatic hydrolysis include the identification of ILs causing limited enzyme inhibition and the utilization of enzymes with improved performance in the presence of ILs.

Coproduction of xylose, lignosulfonate and ethanol from wheat straw

A novel integrated process to coproduce xylose, lignosulfonate and ethanol from wheat straw was investigated. Firstly, wheat straw was treated by dilute sulfuric acid and xylose was recovered from its hydrolyzate. Its optimal conditions were 1.0wt% sulfuric acid, 10% (w/v) wheat straw loading, 100°C, and 2h. Then the acid treated wheat straw was treated by sulfomethylation reagent and its hydrolyzate containing lignosulfonate was directly recovered. Its optimal conditions were 150°C, 15% (w/v) acid treated wheat straw loading, and 5h. Finally, the two-step treated wheat straw was converted to ethanol through enzymatic hydrolysis and microbial fermentation. Under optimal conditions, 1kg wheat straw could produce 0.225kg xylose with 95% purity, 4.16kg hydrolyzate of sulfomethylation treatment containing 5.5% lignosulfonate, 0.183kg ethanol and 0.05kg lignin residue. Compared to present technology, this process is a potential economically profitable wheat straw biorefinery.

Simulated performance of reactor configurations for hot-water pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse

During the pretreatment of cellulosic biomass for subsequent microbial or enzymatic processing, the fiber reactivity typically increases with increasing severity but so does sugar degradation. Experimental results with sugarcane bagasse show that this tradeoff can be mitigated substantially by pretreatment in a flow-through (FT) mode. A model that incorporates both kinetics and mass transfer was developed to simulate the performance of pretreatment in plug flow, counter-current flow, cross flow, discrete counter-current and partial FT configurations. The simulated results compare well to the literature for bagasse pretreated in both batch and FT configurations. A variety of FT configurations result in sugar degradation that is very low (1-5%) and 5-20-fold less than a conventional plug flow configuration. The performance exhibits strong sensitivity to the extent of hemicellulose solubilization, particularly for a conventional plug flow configuration.

Fluid mechanics relevant to flow through pretreatment of cellulosic biomass

The present study investigates fluid mechanical properties of cellulosic feedstocks relevant to flow through (FT) pretreatment for biological conversion of cellulosic biomass. The results inform identifying conditions for which FT pretreatment can be implemented in a practical context. Measurements of pressure drop across packed beds, viscous compaction and water absorption are reported for milled and not milled sugarcane bagasse, switchgrass and poplar, and important factors impacting viscous flow are deduced. Using biomass knife-milled to pass through a 2mm sieve, the observed pressure drop was highest for bagasse, intermediate for switchgrass and lowest for poplar. The highest pressure drop was associated with the presence of more fine particles, greater viscous compaction and the degree of water absorption. Using bagasse without particle size reduction, the instability of the reactor during pretreatment above 140kg/m(3) sets an upper bound on the allowable concentration for continuous stable flow.

Enhancement of total sugar and lignin yields through dissolution of poplar wood by hot water and dilute acid flowthrough pretreatment

BACKGROUND

Pretreatment is a vital but expensive step in biomass biofuel production. Overall, most of this past effort has been directed at maximizing sugar yields from hemicellulose and cellulose through trials with different chemicals, operating conditions, and equipment configurations. Flowthrough pretreatment provides a promising platform to dissolution of lignocellulosic biomass to generate high yields of fermentable sugars and lignin for biofuels productions.

RESULTS

Dissolution of xylan, lignin, and cellulose from poplar wood were significantly enhanced by water-only and dilute acid (0.05% w/w, H2SO4) flowthrough pretreatment when the temperature was raised from 200°C to 280°C over a range of flow rates 10-62.5 mL/min, resulting in more than 98% solid removal. Up to 40% of original xylan was converted to xylose in the hydrolyzate and the rest xylan was solubilized into xylooligomers with negligible furfural formation. Up to 100% cellulose was removed into hydrolyzate with the highest glucose yield of 60% and low 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) formation. The maximal recovered insoluble lignin and soluble lignin were 98% and 15% of original lignin, respectively. In addition, enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated whole slurries was characterized under various enzyme loadings with or without Bovine serum albumin (BSA) treatment. More than 90% glucose yield and 95% xylose yield were obtained from enzymatic hydrolysis of dilute acid pretreated whole slurries with 10 mg protein Ctec 2 with 2 mg Htec2/g glucan + xylan.

CONCLUSIONS

Nearly complete dissolution of whole biomass was realized through water-only and dilute acid flowthrough pretreatment under tested conditions. Temperature was considered as the most significant factor for cellulose degradation. The cellulose removal significantly increased as temperature reached 240°C for water-only and 220°C for dilute acid. Dilute acid pretreatment resulted in higher yields of recovered xylan and cellulose as monomeric sugars in the hydrolyzate than that for water-only pretreatment. Enzymes readily hydrolyzed the degraded cellulose and xylooligomers in pretreatment hydrolysate. Results suggested that kinetics controlled the flowthrough pretreatment of biomass dissolution, which was also affected by flow rate to certain extent.

Kinetic modeling of batch fermentation for Populus hydrolysate tolerant mutant and wild type strains of Clostridium thermocellum

The extent of inhibition of two strains of Clostridium thermocellum by a Populus hydrolysate was investigated. A Monod-based model of wild type (WT) and Populus hydrolysate tolerant mutant (PM) strains of the cellulolytic bacterium C. thermocellum was developed to quantify growth kinetics in standard media and the extent of inhibition to a Populus hydrolysate. The PM was characterized by a higher growth rate (μmax=1.223 vs. 0.571 h(-1)) and less inhibition (KI,gen=0.991 vs. 0.757) in 10% v/v Populus hydrolysate compared to the WT. In 17.5% v/v Populus hydrolysate inhibition of PM increased slightly (KI,gen=0.888), whereas the WT was strongly inhibited and did not grow in a reproducible manner. Of the individual inhibitors tested, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid was the most inhibitory, followed by galacturonic acid. The PM did not have a greater ability to detoxify the hydrolysate than the WT.