Effect of Ammonia Fiber Expansion Combined with NaOH Pretreatment on the Resource Efficiency of Herbaceous and Woody Lignocellulosic Biomass

Jingjing Zhang; Weihua Zhang; Ziyuan Cai; Jilin Zhang; Dan Guan; Dandan Ji; Wensheng Gao

doi:10.1021/acsomega.2c01302

Effect of Ammonia Fiber Expansion Combined with NaOH Pretreatment on the Resource Efficiency of Herbaceous and Woody Lignocellulosic Biomass

ACS Omega. 2022 May 24;7(22):18761-18769. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.2c01302. eCollection 2022 Jun 7.

Authors

Jingjing Zhang¹, Weihua Zhang^{2

3}, Ziyuan Cai¹, Jilin Zhang¹, Dan Guan⁴, Dandan Ji^{1

3}, Wensheng Gao⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Science), Jinan, Shandong, P. R. China 250353.
² Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Jinan, Shandong, P. R. China 250100.
³ Shandong Green Fertilizer Technology Innovation Center, Linyi, Shandong, P. R. China 276700.
⁴ China Biotech Fermentation Industry Association, Beijing, P. R. China, 100833.
⁵ Shandong Agricultural Technology Extension Center, Jinan, Shandong, P. R. China 250003.

Abstract

The most essential issue facing the world today is the provision of energy and sustainable consumption of natural resources. Pretreatment is an essential step to produce biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass. In this study, ammonia fiber explosion (AFEX) combined with NaOH (A-NaOH) pretreatment effects on the characteristics of Pennisetum sinese (herbaceous), oak (hardwood), and camphor wood (softwood) were assessed using enzymatic efficiency analysis, thereby identifying the composition properties of subsequent bio-H₂ production. The results show that the lignin removal (84.2%, 59.7%, and 36.7%, respectively) at 5%A-NaOH conditions and enzymatic efficiency (36.2%, 9.7%, and 6.5%, respectively) of Pennisetum sinese (P. sinese), oak, and camphor wood were significantly increased under 4% A-NaOH conditions. Further A-NaOH pretreatment significantly promoted dark fermentation bio-H₂ production (152.3, 99.1, and 76.9 mL/g TS, respectively) and volatile acid production (4660.2, 3720.2, and 3496.2 mg/L, respectively) of P. sinese, oak, and camphor wood. These findings show that A-NaOH pretreatment is an effective means of utilization of lignocellulose resources.