Facilitating enzymatic hydrolysis with a novel guaiacol-based deep eutectic solvent pretreatment

Chen Huang; Yunni Zhan; Jinyuan Cheng; Jia Wang; Xianzhi Meng; Xuelian Zhou; Guigan Fang; Arthur J Ragauskas

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124696

Facilitating enzymatic hydrolysis with a novel guaiacol-based deep eutectic solvent pretreatment

Bioresour Technol. 2021 Apr:326:124696. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124696. Epub 2021 Jan 12.

Authors

Chen Huang¹, Yunni Zhan², Jinyuan Cheng², Jia Wang³, Xianzhi Meng⁴, Xuelian Zhou³, Guigan Fang⁵, Arthur J Ragauskas⁶

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Chemical Industry of Forest Products, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Jiangsu Province Key Laboratory of Biomass Energy and Materials, Nanjing 210042, China; Co-Innovation Center for Efficient Processing and Utilization of Forest Resources, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China; Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
² Institute of Chemical Industry of Forest Products, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Jiangsu Province Key Laboratory of Biomass Energy and Materials, Nanjing 210042, China.
³ Co-Innovation Center for Efficient Processing and Utilization of Forest Resources, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China.
⁴ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
⁵ Institute of Chemical Industry of Forest Products, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Jiangsu Province Key Laboratory of Biomass Energy and Materials, Nanjing 210042, China; Co-Innovation Center for Efficient Processing and Utilization of Forest Resources, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China.
⁶ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA; Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries, Center for Renewable Carbon, The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA; UTK-ORNL Joint Institute for Biological Science, Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA. Electronic address: aragausk@utk.edu.

PMID: 33508646
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124696

Abstract

Herein, we established a novel deep eutectic solvent (DES) using lignin-derived guaiacol as hydrogen bond donor (HBD). The sole ChCl/guaiacol system was found to be inefficient for the fractionation of wheat straw (WS), while the incorporation of trace AlCl₃ significantly facilitated the degradation of hemicellulose and lignin, resulting in a complete enzymatic digestibility of the pretreated WS. Further, this study revealed that the DES-degraded lignin was readily precipitated during the washing process, and thus hindered the enzymatic hydrolysis of poplar and bamboo (with hydrolysis yield of 42.03% and 71.67%, respectively). Alkali washing offers a possible approach to remove the precipitated lignin, after which a near 100% hydrolysis yield was also obtained for poplar and bamboo.

Keywords: Deep eutectic solvent; Enzymatic hydrolysis; Guaiacol.

MeSH terms

Biomass
Guaiacol*
Hydrolysis
Lignin*
Solvents

Substances

Solvents
Guaiacol
Lignin