Background: Biomass recalcitrance towards pretreatment and further processing can be related to the compositional and structural features of the biomass. However, the exact role and relative importance to those structural attributes has still to be further evaluated. Herein, ten different types of biomass currently considered to be important raw materials for biorefineries were chosen to be processed by the recently developed, acid-catalyzed OrganoCat pretreatment to produce cellulose-enriched pulp, sugars, and lignin with different amounts and qualities. Using wet chemistry analysis and NMR spectroscopy, the generic factors of lignocellulose recalcitrance towards OrganoCat were determined. Results: The different materials were processed applying different conditions (e.g., type of acid catalyst and temperature), and fractions with different qualities were obtained. Raw materials and products were characterized in terms of their compositional and structural features. For the first time, generic correlation coefficients were calculated between the measured chemical and structural features and the different OrganoCat product yields and qualities. Especially lignin-related factors displayed a detrimental role for enzymatic pulp hydrolysis, as well as sugar and lignin yield exhibiting inverse correlation coefficients. Hemicellulose appeared to have less impact, not being as detrimental as lignin factors, but xylan-O-acetylation was inversely correlated with product yield and qualities. Conclusion: These results illustrate the role of generic features of lignocellulosic recalcitrance towards acidic pretreatments and fractionation, exemplified in the OrganoCat strategy. Discriminating between types of lignocellulosic biomass and highlighting important compositional variables, the improved understanding of how these parameters affect OrganoCat products will ameliorate bioeconomic concepts from agricultural production to chemical products. Herein, a methodological approach is proposed.
The palm oil industry
produces large amounts of empty fruit bunches
(EFB) as waste. EFB are very recalcitrant toward further processing,
although their valorization could create novel incentives and bio-economic
opportunities for the industries involved. Herein, EFB have been successfully
subjected to the OrganoCat pretreatment—using 2,5-furandicarboxylic
acid as the biogenic catalyst—to fractionate and separate this
lignocellulosic material into its main components in a single step.
The pretreatment of EFB leads to the deacetylation and depolymerization
of noncellulosic polysaccharides and to the partial delignification
of the cellulosic fiber. The OrganoCat processing of EFB yielded 45
± 0.5 wt % cellulose-enriched pulp, 20 ± 0.7 wt % extracted
lignin, 3.8 ± 0.2 wt % furfural, and 11 ± 0.6 wt % hydrolyzed
sugars. The obtained EFB-pulp showed high accessibility to cellulases,
resulting in a glucan conversion of 73 ± 2% after 72 h (15 ±
2% after 1 h) with commercial cellulase cocktail (Accellerase 1500).
Overall, the results suggest that the treatment of the EFB material
using OrganoCat may create promising paths for the full valorization
of EFBs.
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