Production of isoprene, one of the high-density fuel precursors, from peanut hull using the high-efficient lignin-removal pretreatment method

Abstract

BackgroundIsoprene as the feedstock can be used to produce renewable energy fuels, providing an alternative to replace the rapidly depleting fossil fuels. However, traditional method for isoprene production could not meet the demands for low-energy consumption and environment-friendliness. Moreover, most of the previous studies focused on biofuel production out of lignocellulosic materials such as wood, rice straw, corn cob, while few studies concentrated on biofuel production using peanut hull (PH). As is known, China is the largest peanut producer in the globe with an extremely considerable amount of PH to be produced each year. Therefore, a novel, renewable, and environment-friendly pretreatment strategy to increase the enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency of cellulose and reduce the inhibitors generation was developed to convert PH into isoprene.ResultsThe optimal pretreatment conditions were 100 °C, 60 min, 10% (w/v) solid loading with a 2:8 volume ratio of phosphoric acid and of hydrogen peroxide. In comparison with the raw PH, the hemicellulose and lignin were reduced to 85.0 and 98.0%, respectively. The cellulose–glucose conversion of pretreated PH reached up to 95.0% in contrast to that of the raw PH (19.1%). Only three kinds of inhibitors including formic acid, levulinic acid, and a little furfural were formed during the pretreatment process, whose concentrations were too low to inhibit the isoprene yield for Escherichia coli fermentation. Moreover, compared with the isoprene yield of pure glucose fermentation (298 ± 9 mg/L), 249 ± 6.7 and 294 ± 8.3 mg/L of isoprene were produced using the pretreated PH as the carbon source by the engineered strain via separate hydrolysis and fermentation and simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) methods, respectively. The isoprene production via SSF had a 9.8% glucose–isoprene conversion which was equivalent to 98.8% of isoprene production via the pure glucose fermentation.ConclusionsThe optimized phosphoric acid/hydrogen peroxide combination pretreatment approach was proved effective to remove lignin and hemicellulose from lignocellulosic materials. Meanwhile, the pretreated PH could be converted into isoprene efficiently in the engineered Escherichia coli. It is concluded that this novel strategy of isoprene production using lignocellulosic materials pretreated by phosphoric acid/hydrogen peroxide is a promising alternative to isoprene production using traditional way which can fully utilize non-renewable fossil sources.

Metabolic engineering in lignocellulose biorefining for high-value chemicals: recent advances, challenges, and outlook for enabling a bioeconomy

“…The production of biohydrocarbons from LCB is a relatively underexplored field, as indicated in Table 2. Wang et al (2017) created the recombinant E. coli overexpressing MVA pathway (containing mvaE and mvaS MT from Enterococcus faecalis) and ipsS (isoprene synthase, from Papulus alba). The strain could produce 249-298 mg/L of isoprene from peanut hull hydrolysate in separate hydrolysis and fermentation, and SSF respectively (Wang et al, 2017).…”

“…Wang et al (2017) created the recombinant E. coli overexpressing MVA pathway (containing mvaE and mvaS MT from Enterococcus faecalis) and ipsS (isoprene synthase, from Papulus alba). The strain could produce 249-298 mg/L of isoprene from peanut hull hydrolysate in separate hydrolysis and fermentation, and SSF respectively (Wang et al, 2017). In another study, recombinant E. coli overexpressing the MEP pathway and ipsS was created and employed for the production of isoprene from paper mill sludge hydrolysate.…”

Sustainable Production of Microbial Isoprenoid Derived Advanced Biojet Fuels Using Different Generation Feedstocks: A Review

“…In addition, pre-treatment leads to the release inhibitory compounds, which can greatly hinder cell viability and productivity. These include phenolic compounds (ferulic acid, p-coumaric acid), furan derivatives (furfural, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural) and small organic acids (levulinic acid, formic acid, and acetic acid) (Wang S. et al, 2017;Navarrete et al, 2020).…”

Geranyl Diphosphate Synthase (CrtE) Inhibition Using Alendronate Enhances Isoprene Production in Recombinant Synechococcus elongatus UTEX 2973: A Step towards Isoprene Biorefinery

“…Some attempts have been made for the development of an economically viable process for producing isoprene by using recombinant microbial systems-mainly bacteria, yeast, and cyanobacteria [14][15][16][17]; however, the sustainable and renewable production of isoprene, using CO 2 from recombinant cyanobacteria, could be an appropriate model production system [18,19]. Studies have also shown that isoprene can be a potential alternative to petroleum-based fuels due to its high energy density and low viscosity properties [19,20]. Recently, the hydrogenated isoprene dimers (C 10 H 20 compounds-derivatives of cyclobutene, cyclohexane, and cyclooctane) from recombinant cyanobacteria have been characterized as ideal drop-in jet fuel [19,21].…”