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Ammonia Fiber Expansion (AFEX) Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass

Journal Article · · Journal of Visualized Experiments
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3791/57488· OSTI ID:1637459
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [6];  [6];  [6]
  1. Rutgers Univ., Piscataway, NJ (United States); Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Department of Chemical & Biochemical Engineering
  2. Rutgers Univ., Piscataway, NJ (United States)
  3. Michigan Biotechnology Inst. (MBI), Lansing, MI (United States)
  4. Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States)
  5. Univ. of Houston, TX (United States)
  6. Michigan Technological Univ., Houghton, MI (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Lignocellulosic materials are plant-derived feedstocks, such as crop residues (e.g., corn stover, rice straw, and sugar cane bagasse) and purpose-grown energy crops (e.g., miscanthus, and switchgrass) that are available in large quantities to produce biofuels, biochemicals, and animal feed. Plant polysaccharides (i.e., cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectin) embedded within cell walls are highly recalcitrant towards conversion into useful products. Ammonia fiber expansion (AFEX) is a thermochemical pretreatment that increases accessibility of polysaccharides to enzymes for hydrolysis into fermentable sugars. These released sugars can be converted into fuels and chemicals in a biorefinery. Here, we describe a laboratory-scale batch AFEX process to produce pretreated biomass on the gram-scale without any ammonia recycling. The laboratory-scale process can be used to identify optimal pretreatment conditions (e.g., ammonia loading, water loading, biomass loading, temperature, pressure, residence time, etc.) and generates sufficient quantities of pretreated samples for detailed physicochemical characterization and enzymatic/microbial analysis. The yield of fermentable sugars from enzymatic hydrolysis of corn stover pretreated using the laboratory-scale AFEX process is comparable to pilot-scale AFEX process under similar pretreatment conditions. This paper is intended to provide a detailed standard operating procedure for the safe and consistent operation of laboratory-scale reactors for performing AFEX pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass.

Research Organization:
Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, Madison, WI (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0018409; FC02-07ER64494
OSTI ID:
1637459
Journal Information:
Journal of Visualized Experiments, Journal Name: Journal of Visualized Experiments Journal Issue: 158; ISSN 1940-087X; ISSN JVEOA4
Publisher:
MyJoVE Corp.Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Figures / Tables (4)

Figure 1(p. 4)figure Figure 1
Figure 2(p. 5)figure Figure 2
Figure 3(p. 5)figure Figure 3
Figure 4(p. 5)figure Figure 4

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Related Subjects

09 BIOMASS FUELS
Ammonia Fiber Expansion (AFEX) pretreatment
Issue 158
animal feed
biorefinery
cellulases
cellulosic biofuels
environmental sciences
enzymatic hydrolysis
lignocellulosic biomass