Christian Kirsch

Comparison of pretreatment methods for rye straw in the second generation biorefinery: Effect on cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin recovery

The increasing interest in lignocellulose-based biorefineries boosts the further development of the needed pretreatment methods for preprocessing biomass. There are a large number of different processes that are being investigated; however research is made mostly based on different types of biomass with the same pretreatment or several modifications of the same process for a given type of biomass. In this work a comparison of promising chemical pretreatments using the same biomass was performed. Organosolv (OS), Steam (SE) and Liquid-Hot-Water (LHW) processes were used for the pretreatment of rye straw and the treated solids further enzymatically hydrolyzed. Best results for carbohydrate and lignin yield were found for the OS pretreatment followed close by the LHW and SE with similar results. All of the processes showed satisfactory performance for the pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass for application in the second generation biorefinery.

Development of an integrated thermal and enzymatic hydrolysis for lignocellulosic biomass in fixed-bed reactors

Abstract The limitations of the current biorefinery process utilizing stirred-tank reactors for the enzymatic step include poor mixing in the case of high biomass loadings, additional steps for the product separation, and a long reaction time. In this study the hydrothermal pretreatment and the enzymatic hydrolysis of the lignocellulosic biomass were combined in one fixed-bed reactor. The influence of the shear forces during recirculation and enzyme stability at elevated temperatures were investigated. It has been shown that the shear forces resulting from pumping have a negligible effect on enzyme activity. However, large pressure drops reduce the enzyme activity significantly. Furthermore, the enzyme stability was significantly increased at elevated temperatures (60°C) by applying static pressures up to 200 bar (56% residual activity at 60°C after 24 h). This is beneficial for the process as a higher temperature accelerates the reaction. Further improvement of the overall process efficiency was achieved by increasing the solid-to-water ratio and circulation of the enzyme solution. At a biomass content of 7%, a glucose concentration of 61 g l-1 and a yield of 85% was achieved. The integrated process was first done on a laboratory scale (50 ml). At 100 bar, 60°C and 10% biomass loading an increased initial reaction rate was observed. However, this effect was followed by the stagnation of the glucose yield as one of the enzymes, Novozyme 188, showed no remarkable stabilization with pressure. Nevertheless, an overall glucose yield of 40% was achieved after 5.5 h, compared to 14 h under normal pressure and 50°C.

Pressure assisted stabilization of biocatalysts at elevated temperatures: Characterization by dynamic light scattering

The effect of pressure, at elevated temperatures, is reported on the activity and stability of a thermophilic endo‐β‐glucanase from the filamentous fungus Talaromyces emersonii. The production of reduced sugars after treatment at different temperatures and pressures is used as a measure of the activity and stability of the enzyme. The activity of the enzyme is maintained to higher temperatures with increasing pressure. For example, the relative activity of endo‐β‐glucanase decreases to 30% after 4 h at 75°C and 1 bar, whereas it is preserved at 100% after 6 h at 75°C and 230 bar. High‐pressure dynamic light scattering is used to characterize the hydrodynamic radius of the enzyme as a function of pressure, temperature, and time. At higher temperature the hydrodynamic radius increases with time, whereas increasing pressure suppresses this effect. Changes in the hydrodynamic radius are correlated with the activity measurements obtained at elevated pressures, since the changes in the hydrodynamic radius indicate structural changes of the enzyme, which cause the deactivation. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013; 110: 1674–1680.

Structural characterisation of pretreated solids from flow-through liquid hot water treatment of sugarcane bagasse in a fixed-bed reactor

Untreated sugarcane bagasse and sugarcane bagasse pretreated with flow-through liquid hot water (LHW) treatment (170-207°C and 204-250 ml/min) in a fixed-bed reactor have been structurally characterised. Field emission gun scanning electron microscopy (FEG-SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to investigate changes in the residues, in particular due to the fate of lignin. FEG-SEM results show that the LHW treatment modified the surface morphology of the pretreated bagasse with lignin droplets being observed on the fibre surface. TEM showed an increase in the plant cell wall porosity and lignin migration across the plant cell wall. Increases in pretreatment temperature were observed to increase the average size and density of lignin droplets on the fibre surface. The results provide evidence that for LHW flow-through treatment, just as for batch treatment, lignin repolymerisation and deposition on the surface of pretreated sugarcane bagasse is an important consideration.