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Steam explosion pretreatment of softwood: the effect of the explosive decompression on enzymatic digestibility
BACKGROUND: Steam explosion pretreatment has been examined in many studies for enhancing the enzymatic digestibility of lignocellulosic biomass and is currently the most common pretreatment method in commercial biorefineries. The information available about the effect of the explosive decompression...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4957380/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27453727 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-016-0567-1 |
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author | Pielhop, Thomas Amgarten, Janick von Rohr, Philipp Rudolf Studer, Michael H. |
author_facet | Pielhop, Thomas Amgarten, Janick von Rohr, Philipp Rudolf Studer, Michael H. |
author_sort | Pielhop, Thomas |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Steam explosion pretreatment has been examined in many studies for enhancing the enzymatic digestibility of lignocellulosic biomass and is currently the most common pretreatment method in commercial biorefineries. The information available about the effect of the explosive decompression on the biochemical conversion is, however, very limited, and no studies prove that the latter is actually enhanced by the explosion. Hence, it is of great value to discern between the effect of the explosion on the one hand and the steaming on the other hand, to identify their particular influences on enzymatic digestibility. RESULTS: The effect of the explosive decompression in the steam explosion pretreatment of spruce wood chips on their enzymatic cellulose digestibility was studied systematically. The explosion had a high influence on digestibility, improving it by up to 90 % compared to a steam pretreatment without explosion. Two factors were identified to be essentially responsible for the effect of the explosion on enzymatic digestibility: pretreatment severity and pressure difference of the explosion. A higher pretreatment severity can soften up and weaken the lignocellulose structure more, so that the explosion can better break up the biomass and decrease its particle size, which enhances its digestibility. In particular, increasing the pressure difference of the explosion leads to more defibration, a smaller particle size and a better digestibility. Though differences were found in the micro- and nanostructure of exploded and non-exploded biomass, the only influence of the explosion on digestibility was found to be the macroscopic particle size reduction. Steam explosion treatments with a high severity and a high pressure difference of the explosion lead to a comparatively high cellulose digestibility of the—typically very recalcitrant—softwood biomass. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to show that explosion can enhance the enzymatic digestibility of lignocellulosic biomass. If the enhancing effect of the explosion is thoroughly exploited, even very recalcitrant biomass like softwood can be made enzymatically digestible. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13068-016-0567-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4957380 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-49573802016-07-23 Steam explosion pretreatment of softwood: the effect of the explosive decompression on enzymatic digestibility Pielhop, Thomas Amgarten, Janick von Rohr, Philipp Rudolf Studer, Michael H. Biotechnol Biofuels Research BACKGROUND: Steam explosion pretreatment has been examined in many studies for enhancing the enzymatic digestibility of lignocellulosic biomass and is currently the most common pretreatment method in commercial biorefineries. The information available about the effect of the explosive decompression on the biochemical conversion is, however, very limited, and no studies prove that the latter is actually enhanced by the explosion. Hence, it is of great value to discern between the effect of the explosion on the one hand and the steaming on the other hand, to identify their particular influences on enzymatic digestibility. RESULTS: The effect of the explosive decompression in the steam explosion pretreatment of spruce wood chips on their enzymatic cellulose digestibility was studied systematically. The explosion had a high influence on digestibility, improving it by up to 90 % compared to a steam pretreatment without explosion. Two factors were identified to be essentially responsible for the effect of the explosion on enzymatic digestibility: pretreatment severity and pressure difference of the explosion. A higher pretreatment severity can soften up and weaken the lignocellulose structure more, so that the explosion can better break up the biomass and decrease its particle size, which enhances its digestibility. In particular, increasing the pressure difference of the explosion leads to more defibration, a smaller particle size and a better digestibility. Though differences were found in the micro- and nanostructure of exploded and non-exploded biomass, the only influence of the explosion on digestibility was found to be the macroscopic particle size reduction. Steam explosion treatments with a high severity and a high pressure difference of the explosion lead to a comparatively high cellulose digestibility of the—typically very recalcitrant—softwood biomass. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to show that explosion can enhance the enzymatic digestibility of lignocellulosic biomass. If the enhancing effect of the explosion is thoroughly exploited, even very recalcitrant biomass like softwood can be made enzymatically digestible. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13068-016-0567-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2016-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC4957380/ /pubmed/27453727 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-016-0567-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Pielhop, Thomas Amgarten, Janick von Rohr, Philipp Rudolf Studer, Michael H. Steam explosion pretreatment of softwood: the effect of the explosive decompression on enzymatic digestibility |
title | Steam explosion pretreatment of softwood: the effect of the explosive decompression on enzymatic digestibility |
title_full | Steam explosion pretreatment of softwood: the effect of the explosive decompression on enzymatic digestibility |
title_fullStr | Steam explosion pretreatment of softwood: the effect of the explosive decompression on enzymatic digestibility |
title_full_unstemmed | Steam explosion pretreatment of softwood: the effect of the explosive decompression on enzymatic digestibility |
title_short | Steam explosion pretreatment of softwood: the effect of the explosive decompression on enzymatic digestibility |
title_sort | steam explosion pretreatment of softwood: the effect of the explosive decompression on enzymatic digestibility |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4957380/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27453727 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-016-0567-1 |
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