Small‐scale and automatable high‐throughput compositional analysis of biomass

Abstract

Conventional wet chemistry methods to determine biomass composition are labor- and time-intensive and require larger amounts of biomass (300 mg) than is often available. To overcome these limitations and to support a high-throughput pretreatment and hydrolysis (HTPH) screening system, this article reports on the development of a downscaled biomass compositional analysis that is based on conventional wet chemistry techniques but is scaled down by a factor of 100 to use significantly less material. The procedure is performed in readily available high-performance liquid chromatography vials and can be automated to reduce operator input and increase throughput. Comparison of the compositional analyses of three biomasses determined by the downscaled approach to those obtained by conventional methods showed that the downscaled method measured statistically identical carbohydrate compositions as standard procedures and also can provide reasonable estimates of lignin and ash contents. These results demonstrate the validity of the downscaled procedure for measuring biomass composition to enable the calculation of sugar yields and determination of trends in sugar release behavior in HTPH screening studies.

4- O -methylation of glucuronic acid in Arabidopsis glucuronoxylan is catalyzed by a domain of unknown function family 579 protein

“…The amounts of glucan and xylan in Arabidopsis stem AIR were determined as previously described (52). Hydrothermal pretreat- Fig.…”

Recent innovations in analytical methods for the qualitative and quantitative assessment of lignin

“…The most conventional wet chemical techniques employed to gauge lignin content are the acetyl bromide [225][226][227], Klason or acid-insoluble lignin (AIL) [228][229][230][231][232][233][234], and Van Soest methods [227,235]. While these pervasive protocols have provided researchers with tools for obtaining the magnitude of total lignin in a plant, they also have a variety of shortcomings, such as the use of caustic/toxic reagents (H 2 SO 4 , acetyl bromide) and timeconsuming preparations.…”

“…While these pervasive protocols have provided researchers with tools for obtaining the magnitude of total lignin in a plant, they also have a variety of shortcomings, such as the use of caustic/toxic reagents (H 2 SO 4 , acetyl bromide) and timeconsuming preparations. DeMartini et al addressed the lowthroughput nature of AIL quantitation by developing an automated process that employed a liquid and powder dispensing robot equipped with an analytical balance for weighing individual vials before and after heating in a reactor block [233]. This downscaled protocol did not allow for ash determination, therefore, the acidinsoluble residue was a combination of lignin and ash.…”

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of lignocellulosic biomass using infrared techniques: A mini-review

“…Standard wet chemical methods provide reliable information about biomass composition and have been proven to work well with both wood and herbaceous feedstock, but they are labor-intensive and time-consuming, which make them inappropriate for industrial applications or large numbers of samples; for example, a complete analysis using wet chemical methods costs $800-2000 per sample [16]. Recent developments in the wet chemical method include a small-scale, high-throughput method that is able to process a large number of samples in reduced time [17]. However, besides the additional costs of the instruments/devices (e.g., powder/liquid-dispensing system), these methods still need development because some components of biomass (e.g., acid-soluble lignin and ash) are not determined.…”