Recycling the liquid fraction of alkaline hydrogen peroxide in the pretreatment of corn stover

Bárbara Ribeiro Alves Alencar; Alexandre Libanio Silva Reis; Raquel de Fatima Rodrigues de Souza; Marcos Antônio Morais Jr; Rômulo Simões Cezar Menezes; Emmanuel Damilano Dutra

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2017.06.022

Recycling the liquid fraction of alkaline hydrogen peroxide in the pretreatment of corn stover

Bioresour Technol. 2017 Oct:241:928-935. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.06.022. Epub 2017 Jun 8.

Authors

Bárbara Ribeiro Alves Alencar¹, Alexandre Libanio Silva Reis², Raquel de Fatima Rodrigues de Souza³, Marcos Antônio Morais Jr⁴, Rômulo Simões Cezar Menezes⁵, Emmanuel Damilano Dutra²

Affiliations

¹ Interdepartmental Research Group in Metabolic Engineering, Department of Genetics, Federal University of Pernambuco, 50670-901 Recife, PE, Brazil.
² Research Group on Biomass Energy, Department of Nuclear Energy, Federal University of Pernambuco, 50740-540 Recife, PE, Brazil.
³ Laboratory of Bioprocessing, Center of Strategic Technologies of Northeastern, Av. Prof. Luiz Freire, 01, 50740-540 Recife, PE, Brazil.
⁴ Interdepartmental Research Group in Metabolic Engineering, Department of Genetics, Federal University of Pernambuco, 50670-901 Recife, PE, Brazil; Laboratory of Bioprocessing, Center of Strategic Technologies of Northeastern, Av. Prof. Luiz Freire, 01, 50740-540 Recife, PE, Brazil.
⁵ Research Group on Biomass Energy, Department of Nuclear Energy, Federal University of Pernambuco, 50740-540 Recife, PE, Brazil. Electronic address: rmenezes@ufpe.br.

PMID: 28629110
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.06.022

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of recycling the liquid fraction of pretreatment with alkaline hydrogen peroxide (AHP) on the hydrolysis of corn stover. Corn stover was pretreated in the traditional condition with 7.5% v/v H₂O₂. After pretreatment, the solids were separated from the liquid fraction and five successive reuse cycles of the liquid fraction were tested. The solid fraction from pretreatment in each recycle was submitted to enzymatic hydrolysis. The number of recycles had a linear negative effect (R²=0.98) on biomass delignification efficiency and also affected negatively the enzymatic conversion efficiency. Despite the decrease in efficiency after each recycling step, reuse of the liquid fraction leads to reduction in water, H₂O₂ and NaOH consumption of up to 57.6%, 59.6% and 57.6%, respectively. These findings point to an efficient recycling technology, which may reduce costs and save water.

Keywords: Enzymatic hydrolysis; Lignocellulosic biomass; Pretreatment.

MeSH terms

Biomass
Hydrogen Peroxide*
Hydrolysis
Recycling*
Zea mays*

Substances

Hydrogen Peroxide