Enhancing enzymatic saccharification of water hyacinth through microwave heating with dilute acid pretreatment for biomass energy utilization

Ao Xia, Jun Cheng, Wenlu Song, Cong Yu, Junhu Zhou and Kefa Cen

Energy, 2013, vol. 61, issue C, 158-166

Abstract: Water hyacinth, as waste biomass, can potentially replace fossil fuels and address pressing issues of energy shortage and serious environmental pollution. In this study, microwave-assisted dilute acid pretreatment was proposed to enhance the enzymatic saccharification of water hyacinth for biomass energy utilization. After the pretreatment, a large amount of hemicellulose in the pretreated water hyacinth was hydrolyzed into xylose, galactose, and arabinose, whereas only a small amount of cellulose and lignin was hydrolyzed into glucose and propiolic acid, respectively. Increased pretreatment temperature, reaction time, and H2SO4 concentration generated more hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin degradation products, including monosaccharides and other hydrolyzates, which were further degraded into smaller acids and aldehydes. In the enzymatic hydrolysis step following the pretreatment, a large amount of cellulose was hydrolyzed into glucose and cellobiose, whereas hemicellulose was completely degraded. When 20 g/l of water hyacinth feedstock was subjected to microwave pretreatment with 1% H2SO4 at 140 °C for 15 min and then enzymatically hydrolyzed using cellulase, a maximum reducing sugar yield of 48.3 g/100 g hyacinth was obtained. This value was 94.6% of the theoretical reducing sugar yield.

Keywords: Biomass energy; Water hyacinth; Microwave; Cellulose; Enzymatic hydrolysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544213007706
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:61:y:2013:i:c:p:158-166

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2013.09.019

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().