Research article Special Issues

Pretreatment and Fractionation of Wheat Straw for Production of Fuel Ethanol and Value-added Co-products in a Biorefinery

  • Received: 17 July 2014 Accepted: 14 August 2014 Published: 20 August 2014
  • An integrated process has been developed for a wheat straw biorefinery. In this process, wheat straw was pretreated by soaking in aqueous ammonia (SAA), which extensively removed lignin but preserved high percentages of the carbohydrate fractions for subsequent bioconversion. The pretreatment conditions included 15 wt% NH4OH, 1:10 solid:liquid ratio, 65 oC and 15 hours. Under these conditions, 48% of the original lignin was removed, whereas 98%, 83% and 78% of the original glucan, xylan, and arabinan, respectively, were preserved. The pretreated material was subsequently hydrolyzed with a commercial hemicellulase to produce a solution rich in xylose and low in glucose plus a cellulose-enriched solid residue. The xylose-rich solution then was used for production of value-added products. Xylitol and astaxanthin were selected to demonstrate the fermentability of the xylose-rich hydrolysate. Candida mogii and Phaffia rhodozyma were used for xylitol and astaxanthin fermentation, respectively. The cellulose-enriched residue obtained after the enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated straw was used for ethanol production in a fed-batch simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) process. In this process, a commercial cellulase was used for hydrolysis of the glucan in the residue and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is the most efficient commercial ethanol-producing organism, was used for ethanol production. Final ethanol concentration of 57 g/l was obtained at 27 wt% total solid loading.

    Citation: Xiu Zhang, Nhuan P. Nghiem. Pretreatment and Fractionation of Wheat Straw for Production of Fuel Ethanol and Value-added Co-products in a Biorefinery[J]. AIMS Bioengineering, 2014, 1(1): 40-52. doi: 10.3934/bioeng.2014.1.40

    Related Papers:

  • An integrated process has been developed for a wheat straw biorefinery. In this process, wheat straw was pretreated by soaking in aqueous ammonia (SAA), which extensively removed lignin but preserved high percentages of the carbohydrate fractions for subsequent bioconversion. The pretreatment conditions included 15 wt% NH4OH, 1:10 solid:liquid ratio, 65 oC and 15 hours. Under these conditions, 48% of the original lignin was removed, whereas 98%, 83% and 78% of the original glucan, xylan, and arabinan, respectively, were preserved. The pretreated material was subsequently hydrolyzed with a commercial hemicellulase to produce a solution rich in xylose and low in glucose plus a cellulose-enriched solid residue. The xylose-rich solution then was used for production of value-added products. Xylitol and astaxanthin were selected to demonstrate the fermentability of the xylose-rich hydrolysate. Candida mogii and Phaffia rhodozyma were used for xylitol and astaxanthin fermentation, respectively. The cellulose-enriched residue obtained after the enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated straw was used for ethanol production in a fed-batch simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) process. In this process, a commercial cellulase was used for hydrolysis of the glucan in the residue and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is the most efficient commercial ethanol-producing organism, was used for ethanol production. Final ethanol concentration of 57 g/l was obtained at 27 wt% total solid loading.


    加载中
    [1] FAOSTAT, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2014. Available from: http://faostat3.fao.org/faostat-gateway/go/to/download/Q/QC/E.
    [2] Kim S, Dale BE (2004) Global potential bioethanol production from wasted crops and crop residues. Biomass Bioenerg 26: 361-375. doi: 10.1016/j.biombioe.2003.08.002
    [3] Padgitt M, Newton D, Penn R, et al. (2013). Production Practices for Major Crops in U.S. Agriculture, 1990-97, USDA Economic Research Service. Available from: http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/sb-statistical-bulletin/sb969.aspx#.U7rDCrH5eYc.
    [4] Drapcho CM, Nghiem NP, Walker TH (2008) Biofuels Engineering Process Technology, New York: McGraw-Hill, 69-103.
    [5] Saha BC, Iten LB, Cotta MA, et al. (2005) Dilute acid pretreatment, enzymatic saccharification and fermentation of wheat straw to ethanol. Process Biochem 40: 3693-3700. doi: 10.1016/j.procbio.2005.04.006
    [6] Saha BC, Cotta MA (2006) Ethanol production from alkaline peroxide pretreated enzymatically saccharified wheat straw. Biotechnol Prog 22: 449-453. doi: 10.1021/bp050310r
    [7] Ballesteros I, Negro MJ, Oliva JM, et al. (2006) Ethanol production from steam-exploded wheat straw. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 130: 496-508. doi: 10.1385/ABAB:130:1:496
    [8] Hongzhang C, Liying L (2007) Unpolluted fractionation of wheat straw by steam explosion and ethanol extraction. Bioresource Technol 98: 666-676. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2006.02.029
    [9] Zhu S, Wu Y, Yu Z, et al. (2006) Production of ethanol from microwave-assisted alkali pretreated wheat straw. Process Biochem 41: 869-873. doi: 10.1016/j.procbio.2005.10.024
    [10] Klinke HB, Olsson L, Thomsen AB, et al. (2003) Potential inhibitors from wet oxidation of wheat straw and their effect on ethanol production of Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Wet oxidation and fermentation by yeast. Biotechnol Bioeng 81: 738-747. doi: 10.1002/bit.10523
    [11] Kim TH, Taylor F, Hicks KB (2008) Bioethanol production from barley hull using SAA (soaking in aqueous ammonia) pretreatment. Bioresource Technol 99: 5694-5702. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2007.10.055
    [12] Nghiem NP, Kim TH, Yoo GC, et al. (2013) Enzymatic fractionation of pretreated barley straw for production of fuel ethanol and astaxanthin as a value-added co-product. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 171: 341-351. doi: 10.1007/s12010-013-0374-0
    [13] Nghiem NP, Kim TH, Hicks KB (2012) Method for improving the bioavailability of polysaccharides in lignocellulosic materials. US Patent 8,202,970.
    [14] Kim TH, Lee YY (2005) Pretreatment of corn stover by soaking in aqueous ammonia. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 124: 1119-1132. doi: 10.1385/ABAB:124:1-3:1119
    [15] Kim TH, Lee YY (2007) Pretreatment of corn stover by soaking in aqueous ammonia at moderate temperatures. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 137: 81-92.
    [16] Leathers TD (2003) Bioconversions of maize residues to value-added coproducts using yeast-like fungi. FEMS Yeast Res 3: 133-140. doi: 10.1016/S1567-1356(03)00003-5
    [17] Todd Lorenz R, Cysewski GR (2000) Commercial potential for Haematococcus microalgae as a natural source of astaxanthin. Trends Biotechnol 18: 160-167. doi: 10.1016/S0167-7799(00)01433-5
    [18] Guerin M, Huntley ME, Olaizola M (2003) Haematococcus astaxanthin: applications for human health and nutrition. Trends Biotechnol 21: 210-216. doi: 10.1016/S0167-7799(03)00078-7
    [19] Higuera-Ciapara I, Felix-Valenzuela L, Goycoolea FM (2007) Astaxanthin: A review of its chemistry and applications. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutrition 46: 185-196.
    [20] Nghiem NP, Montanti J, Johnston DB (2009) Production of astaxanthin from corn fiber as a value-added co-product of fuel ethanol fermentation. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 154: 48-58. doi: 10.1007/s12010-008-8399-5
    [21] Prakasham RS, Rao RS, Hobbs PJ (2009) Current trends in biotechnological production of xylitol and future prospects. Curr Trends Biotechnol Pharm 3: 8-36.
    [22] Granström TB, Izumori K, Leisola M (2007) A rare sugar xylitol. Part II: biotechnological production and future applications of xylitol. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 74: 273-276.
    [23] Rivas B, Torre P, Dominguez JM, et al. (2009) Maintenance and growth requirements in the metabolism of Debaryomyces hansenii performing xylose-to-xylitol bioconversion in corncob hemicellulose hydrolysate. Biotechnol Bioeng 102: 1062-1073. doi: 10.1002/bit.22155
    [24] Sluiter A, Hames B, Ruiz R, et al. (2011) Determination of structural carbohydrates and lignin in biomass. Technical report NREL/TP-510-42618. Available from: http://www.nrel.gov/biomass/pdfs/42618.pdf
    [25] Yoo GC, Nghiem NP, Hicks KB, et al. (2013) Maximum production of fermentable sugars from barley straw using optimized soaking in aqueous ammonia (SAA) pretreatment. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 169: 2430-2441. doi: 10.1007/s12010-013-0154-x
    [26] Tochampa W, Sirisansaneeyakul S, Vanichsriratana W, et al. (2005) A model of xylitol production by the yeast Candida mogii. Bioprocess Biosys Eng 28: 175-183. doi: 10.1007/s00449-005-0025-0
    [27] Collura MA, Luyben WL (1988) Energy-saving distillation designs in ethanol production, Ind Eng Chem Res 27: 1686-1696.
  • Reader Comments
  • © 2014 the Author(s), licensee AIMS Press. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
通讯作者: 陈斌, bchen63@163.com
  • 1. 

    沈阳化工大学材料科学与工程学院 沈阳 110142

  1. 本站搜索
  2. 百度学术搜索
  3. 万方数据库搜索
  4. CNKI搜索

Metrics

Article views(6371) PDF downloads(1323) Cited by(7)

Article outline

Figures and Tables

Figures(4)  /  Tables(1)

Other Articles By Authors

/

DownLoad:  Full-Size Img  PowerPoint
Return
Return

Catalog