Assessing the Viability of Recovery of Hydroxycinnamic Acids from Lignocellulosic Biorefinery Alkaline Pretreatment Waste Streams

Steven D Karlen; Peyman Fasahati; Mona Mazaheri; Jose Serate; Rebecca A Smith; Sirisha Sirobhushanam; Mingjie Chen; Vitaliy I Tymokhin; Cynthia L Cass; Sarah Liu; Dharshana Padmakshan; Dan Xie; Yaoping Zhang; Mick A McGee; Jason D Russell; Joshua J Coon; Heidi F Kaeppler; Natalia de Leon; Christos T Maravelias; Troy M Runge; Shawn M Kaeppler; John C Sedbrook; John Ralph

doi:10.1002/cssc.201903345

Assessing the Viability of Recovery of Hydroxycinnamic Acids from Lignocellulosic Biorefinery Alkaline Pretreatment Waste Streams

ChemSusChem. 2020 Apr 21;13(8):2012-2024. doi: 10.1002/cssc.201903345. Epub 2020 Mar 11.

Authors

Steven D Karlen^{1

2}, Peyman Fasahati^{1

3}, Mona Mazaheri^{1

4}, Jose Serate¹, Rebecca A Smith^{1

2}, Sirisha Sirobhushanam⁵, Mingjie Chen^{1

6}, Vitaliy I Tymokhin¹, Cynthia L Cass⁵, Sarah Liu^{1

2}, Dharshana Padmakshan^{1

2}, Dan Xie¹, Yaoping Zhang¹, Mick A McGee¹, Jason D Russell^{1

7}, Joshua J Coon^{1

7

8

9}, Heidi F Kaeppler^{1

4}, Natalia de Leon^{1

4}, Christos T Maravelias^{1

3}, Troy M Runge⁶, Shawn M Kaeppler^{1

4}, John C Sedbrook⁵, John Ralph^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, Wisconsin Energy Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53726, USA.
² Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
³ Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
⁴ Department of Agronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
⁵ DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, School of Biological Sciences, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, 61790, USA.
⁶ Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
⁷ Morgridge Institute for Research, Madison, WI, 53715, USA.
⁸ Department of Biomolecular Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
⁹ Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.

Abstract

The hydroxycinnamic acids p-coumaric acid (pCA) and ferulic acid (FA) add diversity to the portfolio of products produced by using grass-fed lignocellulosic biorefineries. The level of lignin-bound pCA in Zea mays was modified by the alteration of p-coumaroyl-CoA monolignol transferase expression. The biomass was processed in a lab-scale alkaline-pretreatment biorefinery process and the data were used for a baseline technoeconomic analysis to determine where to direct future research efforts to couple plant design to biomass utilization processes. It is concluded that future plant engineering efforts should focus on strategies that ramp up accumulation of one type of hydroxycinnamate (pCA or FA) predominantly and suppress that of the other. Technoeconomic analysis indicates that target extraction titers of one hydroxycinnamic acid need to be >50 g kg^-1 biomass, at least five times higher than observed titers for the impure pCA/FA product mixture from wild-type maize. The technical challenge for process engineers is to develop a viable process that requires more than 80 % reduction of the isolation costs.

Keywords: acids; biomass; industrial chemistry; protein engineering; synthesis design.

Abstract

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