High Purity Cellulose for Low-Cost Nanocellulose and Biofuel Production
- Glucan Biorenewables LLC, Madison, WI (United States)
- Univ. of Mainz (Germany). Inst. for Atmospheric Physics
This project addressed the major challenge of fractionating lignocellulosic biomass into its main components to generate large quantities of nanocellulose in a more energy efficient and cost-effective manner. The overarching objective was to manufacture nanocellulose at a lower unit production cost and make it widely available for numerous emerging market applications. To achieve this goal, we used a solvent-based biomass conversion technology to fractionate lignocellusic biomass into a solid stream of high purity cellulose, used to produce the nanocellulose, and a liquid stream of soluble hemicellulose and lignin, used to produce furfural and technical lignin. By maximizing the conversion of biomass into high value products we decreased the overall cost of each product. We also demonstrated that the high purity cellulose can be converted into glucose enzymatically to be used as feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production. The co-production of high value chemicals, such as, nanocellulose, lignin and furfural, considerably decreased the minimum selling price of cellulosic ethanol. In phase I, we fractionated three different biomass types, corn stover, white bitch and spruce to produce high purity cellulose with a low degree of polymerization and a liquid stream of soluble hemicellulose and lignin (>85% extraction). We characterized the cellulose and produced nanocellulose in a lab-scale cellulose nanofibril production set-up. Upon initial results, the work focused on white birch which gave the best technical performance. We measured the electrical power consumption for various white birch samples and compared them with a bleached softwood Kraft as a control. Finally, we performed a technoeconomic analysis to analyze how the co-production of nanocellulose, furfural and lignin helps to decrease the cost of cellulosic ethanol.
- Research Organization:
- Glucan Biorenewables LLC, Madison, WI (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0017939
- OSTI ID:
- 1439090
- Type / Phase:
- STTR (Phase I)
- Report Number(s):
- GB-SC0017939
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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