Combined Ball Milling and Ethanol Organosolv Pretreatment to Improve the Enzymatic Digestibility of Three Types of Herbaceous Biomass

Seong Ju Kim, Byung Hwan Um, Dong Joong Im, Jin Hyung Lee and Kyeong Keun Oh
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Seong Ju Kim: Department of Biomolecular and Chemical Engineering, Hankyong National University, Anseong, Gyeonggi 17579, Korea
Byung Hwan Um: Department of Chemical Engineering and Research Center of Chemical Technology, Hankyong National University, Anseong, Gyeonggi 17579, Korea
Dong Joong Im: R&D Center, SugarEn Co., Ltd., Yongin, Gyeonggi 16890, Korea
Jin Hyung Lee: Korea Institute of Ceramic Engineering and Technology, Jinju, Gyeongnam 52851, Korea
Kyeong Keun Oh: R&D Center, SugarEn Co., Ltd., Yongin, Gyeonggi 16890, Korea

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-10

Abstract: A combined ball milling and ethanol organosolv process is proposed for the pretreatment of three types of herbaceous biomass, giant miscanthus, corn stover, and wheat straw. The combined pretreatment was effective at both removing lignin and increasing the glucan content. After 120 min pretreatment, the glucan content increased to 63.09%, and 55.89% of the acid-insoluble lignin was removed from the giant miscanthus sample. The removal of cellulose, hemicellulose, and acetyl groups were correlated with the removal of lignin. The pretreatment of corn stover showed the highest removal of cellulose, but this was dependent on the removal of acid-insoluble lignin. The slope of the regression lines, which shows the correlation between the removal of lignin and cellulose, was lower than other correlations. The changes in biomass size were analyzed using size distribution graphs. With increasing pretreatment time, the particle size reduction improved in the three types of herbaceous biomass. Because of the combined physicochemical pretreatment, the enzymatic digestibility improved, and a maximum of 91% glucan digestibility was obtained from the pretreated corn stover when 30 FPU/g-glucan enzyme was added. Finally, compositional analysis of the recovered lignin from the remaining black liquor was investigated.

Keywords: combined pretreatment; ball mill; ethanol organosolv; herbaceous biomass; lignin recovery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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