Bon-Wook Koo

Organosolv pretreatment with various catalysts for enhancing enzymatic hydrolysis of pitch pine (Pinus rigida)

Three different types of catalysts were evaluated for organosolv pretreatment with pitch pine (Pinus rigida). Sulfuric acid, magnesium chloride, and sodium hydroxide for acid, neutral and base catalysts, respectively, were used, and ethanol was the organic solvent. The pretreatment process was conducted at different temperatures and times. The enzymatic hydrolysis process followed to estimate the digestibility of the biomass. The digestibility of pitch pine by pretreatment process with 1% sulfuric acid at the optimal condition was approximately 55-60%, and that by 1% magnesium chloride was nearly 60%. The pretreatment with 1% sodium hydroxide had no effect on digestibility at 10%, but the digestibility improved by more than 80% when the concentration was increased to 2%. Theoretical ethanol yield was the highest at organosolv pretreatment with sulfuric acid at 70% and the lowest with sodium hydroxide at 45%.

Enzymatic saccharification of biologically pretreated Pinus densiflora using enzymes from brown rot fungi

Enzymatic saccharification of lignocellulosic biomass was performed using culture filtrates of brown rot fungi including Gloeophyllum sepiarium, Fomitopsis pinicola, and Laetiporus sulphureus. Biological treatment with white rot fungi was used as pretreatment prior to enzymatic saccharification. Endoglucanase, beta-glucosidase, xylanase and cellobiohydrolase activities were determined from concentrated culture filtrates of the brown rot fungi. L. sulphureus has the highest endoglucanase, beta-glucosidase, and xylanase activities, and F. pinicola has the highest cellobiohydrolase activity. When enzymes from L. sulphureus were used along with the lignocellulosic biomass pretreated with Stereum hirsutum as the carbon source, the total sugar yield was 11.36 mg/0.25 g of dry weight biomass, with the highest activities of cellulase and hemicellulase. In order to increase the sugar yield, the enzymes from L. sulphureus were mixed with those from F. pinicola, which showed high cellobiohydrolase activity. This caused an increase in the sugar yield from 11.36 mg to 15.22 mg. When temperature was increased to 50 degrees C, the total sugar yield increased to 17.74 mg for the same reaction time. The crystallinity of lignocellulosic biomass decreased from 68.4% to 60.2%, when lignocellulosic biomass pretreated with S. hirsutum was hydrolyzed using enzymes from L. sulphureus.

Investigation of the Effective Catalyst for Organosolv Pretreatment of Liriodendron tulipifera

ABSTRACT Organosolv pretreatments which utilized sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide and ammonia as catalysts were conducted to screen the effective catalyst for organosolv pretreatment of Liriodendron tulipifera. The enzy-matic hydrolysis was achieved effectively with sulfuric acid (74.2%) and sodium hydroxide (63.7%). They were thus considered as effective catalysts for organosolv pretreatment of L. tulipifera. The organosolv pre-treatments with sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide showed a different behavior on the reaction mechanism. The pretreatment with sulfuric acid increased the biomass roughness and pore numbers. On the other hand, the pretreatment with sodium hydroxide enhanced the surface area due to the size reduction and minor defiberization which were caused by hemicellulose degradation at an initial stage and more de-fiberization by lignin degradation at a later stage. The organosolv pretreatment with sodium hydroxide was performed at several different conditions to evaluate effectiveness of sodium hydroxide as a catalyst for organosolv pretreatment. According to the results of enzymatic digestibility, the changes of chemical com-position and the morphological analysis of pretreated biomass, it was suggested that the pretreatment time impacted primarily on enzymatic hydrolysis. Increase in surface area during the pretreatment was a major cause for improvement in enzymatic digestibility when sodium hydroxide was used as a catalyst. Keywords : Liriodendron tulipifera, organosolv pretreatment, sulfuric acid catalyst, sodium hydroxide cat-alyst, enzymatic hydrolysis