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Organosolv Fractionation of Birch Sawdust: Establishing a Lignin-First Biorefinery

The use of residual biomass for bioconversions makes it possible to decrease the output of fossil-based chemicals and pursue a greener economy. While the use of lignocellulosic material as sustainable feedstock has been tried at pilot scale, industrial production is not yet economically feasible, re...

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Autores principales: Monção, Maxwel, Hrůzová, Kateřina, Rova, Ulrika, Matsakas, Leonidas, Christakopoulos, Paul
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8588145/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34771161
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules26216754
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author Monção, Maxwel
Hrůzová, Kateřina
Rova, Ulrika
Matsakas, Leonidas
Christakopoulos, Paul
author_facet Monção, Maxwel
Hrůzová, Kateřina
Rova, Ulrika
Matsakas, Leonidas
Christakopoulos, Paul
author_sort Monção, Maxwel
collection PubMed
description The use of residual biomass for bioconversions makes it possible to decrease the output of fossil-based chemicals and pursue a greener economy. While the use of lignocellulosic material as sustainable feedstock has been tried at pilot scale, industrial production is not yet economically feasible, requiring further technology and feedstock optimization. The aim of this study was to examine the feasibility of replacing woodchips with residual sawdust in biorefinery applications. Woodchips can be used in value-added processes such as paper pulp production, whereas sawdust is currently used mainly for combustion. The main advantages of sawdust are its large supply and a particle size sufficiently small for the pretreatment process. Whereas, the main challenge is the higher complexity of the lignocellulosic biomass, as it can contain small amounts of bark and cambium. Here, we studied the fractionation of birch sawdust by organosolv pretreatment at two different temperatures and for two different durations. We evaluated the efficiency of fractionation into the three main fractions: lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose. The cellulose content in pretreated biomass was as high as 69.2%, which was nearly double the amount in untreated biomass. The obtained lignin was of high purity, with a maximum 4.5% of contaminating sugars. Subsequent evaluation of the susceptibility of pretreated solids to enzymatic saccharification revealed glucose yields ranging from 75% to 90% after 48 h but reaching 100.0% under the best conditions. In summary, birch sawdust can be successfully utilized as a feedstock for organosolv fractionation and replace woodchips to simplify and lower the costs of biorefinery processes.
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spelling pubmed-85881452021-11-13 Organosolv Fractionation of Birch Sawdust: Establishing a Lignin-First Biorefinery Monção, Maxwel Hrůzová, Kateřina Rova, Ulrika Matsakas, Leonidas Christakopoulos, Paul Molecules Article The use of residual biomass for bioconversions makes it possible to decrease the output of fossil-based chemicals and pursue a greener economy. While the use of lignocellulosic material as sustainable feedstock has been tried at pilot scale, industrial production is not yet economically feasible, requiring further technology and feedstock optimization. The aim of this study was to examine the feasibility of replacing woodchips with residual sawdust in biorefinery applications. Woodchips can be used in value-added processes such as paper pulp production, whereas sawdust is currently used mainly for combustion. The main advantages of sawdust are its large supply and a particle size sufficiently small for the pretreatment process. Whereas, the main challenge is the higher complexity of the lignocellulosic biomass, as it can contain small amounts of bark and cambium. Here, we studied the fractionation of birch sawdust by organosolv pretreatment at two different temperatures and for two different durations. We evaluated the efficiency of fractionation into the three main fractions: lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose. The cellulose content in pretreated biomass was as high as 69.2%, which was nearly double the amount in untreated biomass. The obtained lignin was of high purity, with a maximum 4.5% of contaminating sugars. Subsequent evaluation of the susceptibility of pretreated solids to enzymatic saccharification revealed glucose yields ranging from 75% to 90% after 48 h but reaching 100.0% under the best conditions. In summary, birch sawdust can be successfully utilized as a feedstock for organosolv fractionation and replace woodchips to simplify and lower the costs of biorefinery processes. MDPI 2021-11-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8588145/ /pubmed/34771161 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules26216754 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Monção, Maxwel
Hrůzová, Kateřina
Rova, Ulrika
Matsakas, Leonidas
Christakopoulos, Paul
Organosolv Fractionation of Birch Sawdust: Establishing a Lignin-First Biorefinery
title Organosolv Fractionation of Birch Sawdust: Establishing a Lignin-First Biorefinery
title_full Organosolv Fractionation of Birch Sawdust: Establishing a Lignin-First Biorefinery
title_fullStr Organosolv Fractionation of Birch Sawdust: Establishing a Lignin-First Biorefinery
title_full_unstemmed Organosolv Fractionation of Birch Sawdust: Establishing a Lignin-First Biorefinery
title_short Organosolv Fractionation of Birch Sawdust: Establishing a Lignin-First Biorefinery
title_sort organosolv fractionation of birch sawdust: establishing a lignin-first biorefinery
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8588145/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34771161
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules26216754
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