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Characterization of pilot-scale dilute acid pretreatment performance using deacetylated corn stover.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Dilute acid pretreatment is a promising process technology for the deconstruction of low-lignin lignocellulosic biomass, capable of producing high yields of hemicellulosic sugars and enhancing enzymatic yields of glucose as part of a biomass-to-biofuels process. However, while it has been extensively studied, most work has historically been conducted at relatively high acid concentrations of 1 - 4% (weight/weight). Reducing the effective acid loading in pretreatment has the potential to reduce chemical costs both for pretreatment and subsequent neutralization. Additionally, if acid loadings are sufficiently low, capital requirements associated with reactor construction may be significantly reduced due to the relaxation of requirements for exotic alloys. Despite these benefits, past efforts have had difficulty obtaining high process yields at low acid loadings without supplementation of additional unit operations, such as mechanical refining. RESULTS:Recently, we optimized the dilute acid pretreatment of deacetylated corn stover at low acid loadings in a 1-ton per day horizontal pretreatment reactor. This effort included more than 25 pilot-scale pretreatment experiments executed at reactor temperatures ranging from 150 - 170°C, residence times of 10 - 20 minutes and hydrolyzer sulfuric acid concentrations between 0.15 - 0.30% (weight/weight). In addition to characterizing the process yields achieved across the reaction space, the optimization identified a pretreatment reaction condition that achieved total xylose yields from pretreatment of 73.5%?±?1.5% with greater than 97% xylan component balance closure across a series of five runs at the same condition. Feedstock reactivity at this reaction condition after bench-scale high solids enzymatic hydrolysis was 77%, prior to the inclusion of any additional conversion that may occur during subsequent fermentation. CONCLUSIONS:This study effectively characterized a range of pretreatment reaction conditions using deacetylated corn stover at low acid loadings and identified an optimum reaction condition was selected and used in a series of integrated pilot scale cellulosic ethanol production campaigns. Additionally, several issues exist to be considered in future pretreatment experiments in continuous reactor systems, including the formation of char within the reactor, as well as practical issues with feeding herbaceous feedstock into pressurized systems.

SUBMITTER: Shekiro Iii J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3942107 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Characterization of pilot-scale dilute acid pretreatment performance using deacetylated corn stover.

Shekiro Iii Joseph J Kuhn Erik M EM Nagle Nicholas J NJ Tucker Melvin P MP Elander Richard T RT Schell Daniel J DJ

Biotechnology for biofuels 20140218 1

<h4>Background</h4>Dilute acid pretreatment is a promising process technology for the deconstruction of low-lignin lignocellulosic biomass, capable of producing high yields of hemicellulosic sugars and enhancing enzymatic yields of glucose as part of a biomass-to-biofuels process. However, while it has been extensively studied, most work has historically been conducted at relatively high acid concentrations of 1 - 4% (weight/weight). Reducing the effective acid loading in pretreatment has the po ...[more]

PMID: 24548527

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Lignocellulosic biomass is a renewable, naturally mass-produced form of stored solar energy. Thermochemical pretreatment processes have been developed to address the challenge of biomass recalcitrance, however the optimization, cost reduction, and scalability of these processes remain as obstacles to the adoption of biofuel production processes at the industrial scale. In this study, we demonstrate that the type of reactor in which pretreatment is carried out can profoundly alter the micro- and nanostructure of the pretreated materials and dramatically affect the subsequent efficiency, and thus cost, of enzymatic conversion of cellulose. RESULTS:Multi-scale microscopy and quantitative image analysis was used to investigate the impact of different biomass pretreatment reactor configurations on plant cell wall structure. We identify correlations between enzymatic digestibility and geometric descriptors derived from the image data. Corn stover feedstock was pretreated under the same nominal conditions for dilute acid pretreatment (2.0 wt% H2SO4, 160°C, 5 min) using three representative types of reactors: ZipperClave® (ZC), steam gun (SG), and horizontal screw (HS) reactors. After 96 h of enzymatic digestion, biomass treated in the SG and HS reactors achieved much higher cellulose conversions, 88% and 95%, respectively, compared to the conversion obtained using the ZC reactor (68%). Imaging at the micro- and nanoscales revealed that the superior performance of the SG and HS reactors could be explained by reduced particle size, cellular dislocation, increased surface roughness, delamination, and nanofibrillation generated within the biomass particles during pretreatment. CONCLUSIONS:Increased cellular dislocation, surface roughness, delamination, and nanofibrillation revealed by direct observation of the micro- and nanoscale change in accessibility explains the superior performance of reactors that augment pretreatment with physical energy.

Project description:BackgroundLignocellulosic feedstocks have attracted much attention as a potential carbon source for lactic acid (LA) production because of their ready availability, sustainability, and renewability. However, there are at least two major technical challenges to producing LA from lignocellulose. Inhibitors derived from lignocellulose pretreatment have a negative impact on the growth of cells producing LA. Furthermore, pentose sugars produced from the pretreatment are difficultly utilized by most LA producers, which is known as the carbon catabolite repression (CCR) effect. This complex feedstock can be utilized by a robust microbial consortium with high bioconversion efficiency.ResultsIn this study, a thermophilic consortium DUT50 producing LA was enriched and employed to improve corn stover (CS) utilization. Enterococcus was the dominant family in the consortium DUT50, accounting for 93.66% of the total abundance, with Lactobacillus, Bacillus, Lactococcus, and Trichococcus accounted for the remaining 2.68%. This consortium could be resistant to inhibitors concentration up to 9.74 g/L (2.88 g/L acetic acid, 2.46 g/L furfural, 2.20 g/L 5-HMF, and 2.20 g/L vanillin derived from pretreatment of CS), and simultaneously metabolizes hexose and pentose without CCR effect. Based on the promising consortium features, an efficient process of simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation (SSCF) was developed to produce LA from acid pretreated corn stover, in which solid-liquid separation and detoxification were avoided. The key influencing factors were investigated and optimized, including dry biomass and cellulase loading, corn steep liquor powder concentration, and the pre-hydrolysis time. The highest LA titer of 71.04 g/L with a yield of 0.49 g/g-CS was achieved at a dry biomass loading of 20% (w/v), which is the highest LA production from non-detoxified acid pretreated corn stover via the SSCF process without wastewater generation reported to date. The simultaneous metabolism of hexose and pentose revealed collaboration between Enterococcus in the consortium, whereas xylose may be efficiently metabolized by Lactobacillus and Bacillus with low abundance via the pentose phosphate pathway.ConclusionsThe experimental results demonstrated the potential advantage of symbiosis in microbial consortia used for LA production from lignocellulosic biomass.

Project description:BackgroundComplete conversion of the major sugars of biomass including both the C5 and C6 sugars is critical for biofuel production processes. Several inhibitory compounds like acetate, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), and furfural are produced from the biomass pretreatment process leading to 'hydrolysate toxicity,' a major problem for microorganisms to achieve complete sugar utilization. Therefore, development of more robust microorganisms to utilize the sugars released from biomass under toxic environment is critical. In this study, we use continuous culture methodologies to evolve and adapt the ethanologenic bacterium Zymomonas mobilis to improve its ethanol productivity using corn stover hydrolysate.ResultsA turbidostat was used to adapt the Z. mobilis strain 8b in the pretreated corn stover liquor. The adaptation was initiated using pure sugar (glucose and xylose) followed by feeding neutralized liquor at different dilution rates. Once the turbidostat reached 60% liquor content, the cells began washing out and the adaptation was stopped. Several 'sub-strains' were isolated, and one of them, SS3 (sub-strain 3), had 59% higher xylose utilization than the parent strain 8b when evaluated on 55% neutralized PCS (pretreated corn stover) liquor. Using saccharified PCS slurry generated by enzymatic hydrolysis from 25% solids loading, SS3 generated an ethanol yield of 75.5% compared to 64% for parent strain 8b. Furthermore, the total xylose utilization was 57.7% for SS3 versus 27.4% for strain 8b. To determine the underlying genotypes in these new sub-strains, we conducted genomic resequencing and identified numerous single-nucleotide mutations (SNPs) that had arisen in SS3. We further performed quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) on genes potentially affected by these SNPs and identified significant down-regulation of two genes, ZMO0153 and ZMO0776, in SS3 suggesting potential genetic mechanisms behind SS3's improved performance.ConclusionWe have adapted/evolved Z. mobilis strain 8b for enhanced tolerance to the toxic compounds present in corn stover hydrolysates. The adapted strain SS3 has higher xylose utilization rate and produce more ethanol than the parent strain. We have identified transcriptional changes which may be responsible for these phenotypes, providing foundations for future research directions in improving Z. mobilis as biocatalysts for the production of ethanol or other fuel precursors.

Project description:BackgroundIn a biorefinery producing cellulosic biofuels, biomass pretreatment will significantly influence the efficacy of enzymatic hydrolysis and microbial fermentation. Comparison of different biomass pretreatment techniques by studying the impact of pretreatment on downstream operations at industrially relevant conditions and performing comprehensive mass balances will help focus attention on necessary process improvements, and thereby help reduce the cost of biofuel production.ResultsAn on-going collaboration between the three US Department of Energy (DOE) funded bioenergy research centers (Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and BioEnergy Science Center (BESC)) has given us a unique opportunity to compare the performance of three pretreatment processes, notably dilute acid (DA), ionic liquid (IL) and ammonia fiber expansion (AFEX(TM)), using the same source of corn stover. Separate hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF) was carried out using various combinations of commercially available enzymes and engineered yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae 424A) strain. The optimal commercial enzyme combination (Ctec2: Htec2: Multifect Pectinase, percentage total protein loading basis) was evaluated for each pretreatment with a microplate-based assay using milled pretreated solids at 0.2% glucan loading and 15 mg total protein loading/g of glucan. The best enzyme combinations were 67:33:0 for DA, 39:33:28 for IL and 67:17:17 for AFEX. The amounts of sugar (kg) (glucose: xylose: total gluco- and xylo-oligomers) per 100 kg of untreated corn stover produced after 72 hours of 6% glucan loading enzymatic hydrolysis were: DA (25:2:2), IL (31:15:2) and AFEX (26:13:7). Additionally, the amounts of ethanol (kg) produced per 100 kg of untreated corn stover and the respective ethanol metabolic yield (%) achieved with exogenous nutrient supplemented fermentations were: DA (14.0, 92.0%), IL (21.2, 93.0%) and AFEX (20.5, 95.0%), respectively. The reason for lower ethanol yield for DA is because most of the xylose produced during the pretreatment was removed and not converted to ethanol during fermentation.ConclusionsCompositional analysis of the pretreated biomass solids showed no significant change in composition for AFEX treated corn stover, while about 85% of hemicellulose was solubilized after DA pretreatment, and about 90% of lignin was removed after IL pretreatment. As expected, the optimal commercial enzyme combination was different for the solids prepared by different pretreatment technologies. Due to loss of nutrients during the pretreatment and washing steps, DA and IL pretreated hydrolysates required exogenous nutrient supplementation to ferment glucose and xylose efficiently, while AFEX pretreated hydrolysate did not require nutrient supplementation.

Project description:The production of value-added chemicals alongside biofuels from lignocellulosic hydrolysates is critical for developing economically viable biorefineries. Here, the production of propionic acid (PA), a potential building block for C3-based chemicals, from corn stover hydrolysate is investigated using the native PA-producing bacterium Propionibacterium acidipropionici.A wide range of culture conditions and process parameters were examined and experimentally optimized to maximize titer, rate, and yield of PA. The effect of gas sparging during fermentation was first examined, and N2 was found to exhibit improved performance over CO2. Subsequently, the effects of different hydrolysate concentrations, nitrogen sources, and neutralization agents were investigated. One of the best combinations found during batch experiments used yeast extract (YE) as the primary nitrogen source and NH4OH for pH control. This combination enabled PA titers of 30.8 g/L with a productivity of 0.40 g/L h from 76.8 g/L biomass sugars, while successfully minimizing lactic acid production. Due to the economic significance of downstream separations, increasing titers using fed-batch fermentation was examined by changing both feeding media and strategy. Continuous feeding of hydrolysate was found to be superior to pulsed feeding and combined with high YE concentrations increased PA titers to 62.7 g/L and improved the simultaneous utilization of different biomass sugars. Additionally, applying high YE supplementation maintains the lactic acid concentration below 4 g/L for the duration of the fermentation. Finally, with the aim of increasing productivity, high cell density fed-batch fermentations were conducted. PA titers increased to 64.7 g/L with a productivity of 2.35 g/L h for the batch stage and 0.77 g/L h for the overall process.These results highlight the importance of media and fermentation strategy to improve PA production. Overall, this work demonstrates the feasibility of producing PA from corn stover hydrolysate.

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Characterization of pilot-scale dilute acid pretreatment performance using deacetylated corn stover.

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Characterization of pilot-scale dilute acid pretreatment performance using deacetylated corn stover.

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