Improving enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency of wheat straw through sequential autohydrolysis and alkaline post-extraction

Xinxing Wu; Chen Huang; Shengcheng Zhai; Chen Liang; Caoxing Huang; Chenhuan Lai; Qiang Yong

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2017.12.066

Improving enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency of wheat straw through sequential autohydrolysis and alkaline post-extraction

Bioresour Technol. 2018 Mar:251:374-380. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.12.066. Epub 2017 Dec 21.

Authors

Xinxing Wu¹, Chen Huang¹, Shengcheng Zhai², Chen Liang³, Caoxing Huang⁴, Chenhuan Lai¹, Qiang Yong⁵

Affiliations

¹ Co-Innovation Center for Efficient Processing and Utilization of Forest Resources, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China; College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China.
² Co-Innovation Center for Efficient Processing and Utilization of Forest Resources, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China; Materials Science & Engineering College, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China.
³ Guangxi Key Laboratory of Clean Pulp & Papermaking and Pollution Control, Nanning 530004, China.
⁴ Guangxi Key Laboratory of Clean Pulp & Papermaking and Pollution Control, Nanning 530004, China; College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China.
⁵ Co-Innovation Center for Efficient Processing and Utilization of Forest Resources, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China; College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China. Electronic address: swhx@njfu.com.cn.

PMID: 29294459
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.12.066

Abstract

In this work, a two-step pretreatment process of wheat straw was established by combining autohydrolysis pretreatment and alkaline post-extraction. The results showed that employing alkaline post-extraction to autohydrolyzed wheat straw could significantly improve its enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency from 36.0% to 83.7%. Alkaline post-extraction lead to the changes of the structure characteristics of autohydrolyzed wheat straw. Associations between enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency and structure characteristics were also studied. The results showed that the factors of structure characteristics such as delignification, xylan removal yield, crystallinity, accessibility and hydrophobicity are positively related to enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency within a certain range for alkaline post-extracted wheat straw. The results demonstrated that autohydrolysis coupled with alkaline post-extraction is an effective and promising method to gain fermentable sugars from biomass.

Keywords: Alkaline post-extraction; Enzymatic hydrolysis; Structure characteristics; Wheat straw.

MeSH terms

Biomass*
Hydrolysis
Triticum*