Impact of Dilute Sulfuric Acid, Ammonium Hydroxide, and Ionic Liquid Pretreatments on the Fractionation and Characterization of Engineered Switchgrass

Improving plant characteristics for better environmental resilience and more cost-effective transformation to fuels and chemicals is one of the focus areas in biomass feedstock development. In order to bridge lignin engineering and conversion technologies, this study aimed to fractionate and charact...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bioenergy research 2017-12, Vol.10 (4), p.1079-1093
Main Authors: Liu, Enshi, Das, Lalitendu, Zhao, Bingyu, Crocker, Mark, Shi, Jian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ammonium
Ammonium hydroxide
Biomass
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Calorimetry
Differential scanning calorimetry
Dilution
Enzymes
Fractionation
G ratio
Grasses
Hydroxides
Ionic liquids
Ions
Life Sciences
Lignin
Molecular weight
Panicum virgatum
Plant Breeding/Biotechnology
Plant Ecology
Plant Genetics and Genomics
Plant Sciences
Pretreatment
Raw materials
Streams
Sulfuric acid
Thermal properties
Thermodynamic properties
Weight reduction
Wood Science & Technology
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Summary:Improving plant characteristics for better environmental resilience and more cost-effective transformation to fuels and chemicals is one of the focus areas in biomass feedstock development. In order to bridge lignin engineering and conversion technologies, this study aimed to fractionate and characterize lignin streams from wild-type and engineered switchgrass using three different pretreatment methods, i.e., dilute sulfuric acid (DA), ammonium hydroxide (AH), and aqueous ionic liquid (IL). Results demonstrate the low lignin content and high S/G ratio switchgrass mutant ( 4CL ) was more susceptible to pretreatment and subsequently more digestible by enzymes as compared to wild-type switchgrass and AtLOV1 mutant. In addition, when compared to DA and AH pretreatment, aqueous IL (cholinium lysinate) was demostrated to be an efficient lignin solvent, as indicated by the high (> 80%) lignin solubility and reduced lignin molecular weight. FTIR and differential scanning calorimetry measurements suggest that pretreatment chemistry greatly influenced the structural and compositional changes and thermal properties of the pretreated switchgrass and recovered lignin-rich streams. The comparative data obtained from this work deepen our understanding of how lignin modification impacts the fractionation and properties of biomass feedstocks.
ISSN:1939-1234
1939-1242
DOI:10.1007/s12155-017-9868-x