Innovative Deconstruction of Biomass Induced by Dry Chemo-Mechanical Activation: Impact on Enzymatic Hydrolysis and Energy Efficiency

Abstract

Lignocellulose fractionation to chemicals and biofuels often requires severe conditions and consume high energy. Although some of these pretreatment processes are nowadays developed at pilot scale, they are not always cost effective, and they are responsible for environmental impacts. Recently, mechanocatalysis pretreatment emerged as a promising technology for the activation and deconstruction of lignocellulosic biomass. In particular, these dry processes have the potential to limit the use of solvent and the production of liquid effluents. In this study, we propose an innovative one-pot eco-friendly approach based on the combination of dry chemical and vibro-ball-milling (VBM) for biomass activation, coupled to enzymatic conversion without an external source of heating, and without the assistance of any organic solvent. NaOH activation coupling to VBM fractionation for 10, 30, and 60 min was compared to H 3 PO 4 , H 2 O 2 , betaine, and betaine-Cl activation. NaOH-VBM-10 min appears more effective in sugar production compared to other chemical−mechanical activation. NaOH-VBM in 10 min consumed less energy, resulting in higher energy efficiency compared to that of other chemical−mechanical activation. Therefore, NaOH-VBM-10 min appears the most suitable and interesting pretreatment for the production of sugars and biofuels from corn stover biomass.

Comparison of Dry Versus Wet Milling to Improve Bioethanol or Methane Recovery from Solid Anaerobic Digestate

“…[23] reported a cellulose hydrolysis yield of 95% after 3 hours of VBM of sugarcane bagasse, whereas Ref. [39] reported a cellulose hydrolysis yield of 56% after 30 min of VBM of corn stover. The effect of VBM on wet digestate was less pronounced with a similar duration.…”

“…In addition to enzymatic hydrolysis, in order to compare the various VBM modalities, the energy efficiency coefficients were calculated, as shown in Table 3 [41]. In general, the highest ɳ corresponds to the most effective pretreatment [39,41]. Both total sugar recovery and pretreatment energy efficiency should be used in evaluating and comparing the performance of pretreatment processes [41,42].…”

DRY biorefineries: Multiscale modeling studies and innovative processing

“…It was successfully applied to corn stover (Loustau-Cazalet et al, 2016) and sugarcane bagasse (Sambusiti et al, 2015). Note too that anaerobic fermentation of wheat straw followed by grinding was shown to both reduce milling-specific energy consumption by up to 35% in comparison with untreated straw and to enhance bioethanol yields by up to 83% (Motte et al, 2015b).…”

Mechanocatalytic Production of Lactic Acid from Glucose by Ball Milling

“…Cellulose and lignin were ball milled after being mixed with acidic and basic solid catalysts, respectively, and it was found that the mechanocatalysis process could depolymerize the substrates and result in water-soluble fractions, since the β-1,4 glyosidic bond and β-O-4 linkage can be cleaved by a synergistic effect between the solid catalyst and mechanical forces [16−18]. Recent work has mainly focused on the mechanochemical pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass, which could greatly increase the yield of target products or relieve the severity of reaction conditions followed by a tandem process of hydrothermal acid hydrolysis or enzymatic hydrolysis [19,20].…”