Steam Explosion Pretreatment of Beechwood. Part 1: Comparison of the Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Washed Solids and Whole Pretreatment Slurry at Different Solid Loadings

Robert Balan, Andrzej Antczak, Simone Brethauer, Tomasz Zielenkiewicz and Michael H. Studer
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Robert Balan: School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences HAFL, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Laenggasse 85, 3052 Zollikofen, Switzerland
Andrzej Antczak: Institute of Wood Sciences and Furniture, Warsaw University of Life Sciences-SGGW, 159 Nowoursynowska St., 02-776 Warsaw, Poland
Simone Brethauer: School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences HAFL, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Laenggasse 85, 3052 Zollikofen, Switzerland
Tomasz Zielenkiewicz: Institute of Wood Sciences and Furniture, Warsaw University of Life Sciences-SGGW, 159 Nowoursynowska St., 02-776 Warsaw, Poland
Michael H. Studer: School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences HAFL, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Laenggasse 85, 3052 Zollikofen, Switzerland

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 14, 1-15

Abstract: Steam explosion is a well-known process to pretreat lignocellulosic biomass in order to enhance sugar yields in enzymatic hydrolysis, but pretreatment conditions have to be optimized individually for each material. In this study, we investigated how the results of a pretreatment optimization procedure are influenced by the chosen reaction conditions in the enzymatic hydrolysis. Beechwood was pretreated by steam explosion and the resulting biomass was subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis at glucan loadings of 1% and 5% employing either washed solids or the whole pretreatment slurry. For enzymatic hydrolysis in both reaction modes at a glucan loading of 1%, the glucose yields markedly increased with increasing severity and with increasing pretreatment temperature at identical severities and maximal values were reached at a pretreatment temperature of 230 °C. However, the optimal severity was 5.0 for washed solids enzymatic hydrolysis, but only 4.75 for whole slurry enzymatic hydrolysis. When the glucan loading was increased to 5%, glucose yields hardly increased for pretreatment temperatures between 210 and 230 °C at a given severity, and a pretreatment temperature of 220 °C was sufficient under these conditions. Consequently, it is important to precisely choose the desired conditions of the enzymatic hydrolysis reaction, when aiming to optimize the pretreatment conditions for a certain biomass.

Keywords: steam explosion; pretreatment; beechwood; whole slurry; enzymatic hydrolysis; high solids (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: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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