Supercritical carbon dioxide pretreatment of corn stover and switchgrass for lignocellulosic ethanol production
2011
Narayanaswamy, Naveen | Faik, Ahmed | Goetz, Douglas J. | Gu, Tingyue
Supercritical CO₂ (SC-CO₂), a green solvent suitable for a mobile lignocellulosic biomass processor, was used to pretreat corn stover and switchgrass at various temperatures and pressures. The CO₂ pressure was released as quickly as possible by opening a quick release valve during the pretreatment. The biomass was hydrolyzed after pretreatment using cellulase combined with β-glucosidase. The hydrolysate was analyzed for the amount of glucose released. Glucose yields from corn stover samples pretreated with SC-CO₂ were higher than the untreated sample’s 12% glucose yield (12g/100g dry biomass) and the highest glucose yield of 30% was achieved with SC-CO₂ pretreatment at 3500psi and 150°C for 60min. The pretreatment method showed very limited improvement (14% vs. 12%) in glucose yield for switchgrass. X-ray diffraction results indicated no change in crystallinity of the SC-CO₂ treated corn stover when compared to the untreated, while SEM images showed an increase in surface area.
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