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Title: Physicochemical structural changes of poplar and switchgrass during biomass pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis

Journal Article · · ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  2. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
  3. Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
  4. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Converting lignocellulosics to simple sugars for second generation bioethanol is complicated due to biomass recalcitrance, and it requires a pretreatment stage prior to enzymatic hydrolysis. In this study, native, pretreated (acid and alkaline) and partially hydrolyzed poplar and switchgrass were characterized by using Simons’ staining for cellulose accessibility, GPC for degree of polymerization (DP), and FTIR for chemical structure of plant cell wall. The susceptibility of the pretreated biomass to enzymatic hydrolysis could not be easily predicted from differences in cellulose DP and accessibility. During hydrolysis, the most significant DP reduction occurred at the very beginning of hydrolysis, and the DP began to decrease at a significantly slower rate after this initial period, suggesting an existence of a synergistic action of endo- and exoglucanases that contribute to the occurrence of a “peeling off” mechanism. Cellulose accessibility was found to be increased at the beginning of hydrolysis, after reaching a maximum value then started to decrease. In conclusion, the fresh enzyme restart hydrolysis experiment along with the accessibility data indicated that the factors associated with the nature of enzyme such as irreversible nonspecific binding of cellulases by lignin and steric hindrance of enzymes should be responsible for the gradual slowing down of the reaction rate.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). BioEnergy Science Center (BESC)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1319235
Journal Information:
ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, Vol. 4, Issue 9; ISSN 2168-0485
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 70 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (11)

Dynamical assessment of fluorescent probes mobility in poplar cell walls reveals nanopores govern saccharification journal October 2018
Effects of combined pretreatment of dilute acid pre-extraction and chemical-assisted mechanical refining on enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass journal January 2018
Effects of Corn Stover Pretreated with NaOH and CaO on Anaerobic Co-Digestion of Swine Manure and Corn Stover journal December 2018
Physico-chemical oxidative cleavage strategy facilitates the degradation of recalcitrant crystalline cellulose by cellulases hydrolysis journal January 2018
Structural features influential to enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose-solvent-based pretreated pinewood and elmwood for ethanol production journal November 2017
Utilization of simultaneous saccharification and fermentation residues as feedstock for lipid accumulation in Rhodococcus opacus journal September 2017
New Insight into Enzymatic Hydrolysis of the Rice Straw and Poplar: an In-depth Statistical Analysis on the Multiscale Recalcitrance journal January 2019
An In-Depth Understanding of Biomass Recalcitrance Using Natural Poplar Variants as the Feedstock journal December 2016
High energy oxidation and organosolv solubilization for high yield isolation of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) from Eucalyptus hardwood journal November 2018
Crystal Structure of α-Xylosidase from Aspergillus niger in Complex with a Hydrolyzed Xyloglucan Product and New Insights in Accurately Predicting Substrate Specificities of GH31 Family Glycosidases journal January 2020
Unraveling variations of crystalline cellulose induced by ionic liquid and their effects on enzymatic hydrolysis journal August 2017

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Related Subjects

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
09 BIOMASS FUELS
biomass recalcitrance
cellulose accessibility
degree of polymerization
irreversible nonspecific binding
peeling off
Simons’ stain