Enzymatic pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass for enhanced biomethane production-A review.

Abstract

The rapid depletion of natural resources and the environmental concerns associated with the use of fossil fuels as the main source of global energy is leading to an increased interest in alternative and renewable energy sources. Particular interest has been given to the lignocellulosic biomass as the most abundant source of organic matter with a potential of being utilized for energy recovery. Different approaches have been applied to convert the lignocellulosic biomass to energy products including anaerobic digestion (AD), fermentation, combustion, pyrolysis, and gasification. The AD process has been proven as an effective technology for converting organic material into energy in the form of methane-rich biogas. However, the complex structure of the lignocellulosic biomass comprised of cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin hinders the ability of microorganisms in an AD process to degrade and convert these compounds to biogas. Therefore, a pretreatment step is essential to improve the degradability of the lignocellulosic biomass to achieve higher biogas rate and yield. A system that uses pretreatment and AD is known as advanced AD. Several pretreatment methods have been studied over the past few years including physical, thermal, chemical and biological pretreatment. This paper reviews the enzymatic pretreatment as one of the biological pretreatment methods which has received less attention in the literature than the other pretreatment methods. This paper includes a review of lignocellulosic biomass composition, AD process, challenges in degrading lignocellulosic materials, the current status of research to improve the biogas rate and yield from the AD of lignocellulosic biomass via enzymatic pretreatment, and the future trend in research for the reduction of enzymatic pretreatment cost.