title: Fungal treatment of cornstalks enhances the delignification and xylan loss during mild alkaline pretreatment and enzymatic digestibility of glucan.
abstract: Fungal treatment with Irpex lacteus was used to enhance the delignification and xylan loss during mild alkaline pretreatment and subsequent enzymatic conversion in this research. The 15-day bio-treatment can modify the lignin structure and increase losses of lignin (from 75.67% to 80.00%) and xylan (from 40.68% to 51.37%) during alkaline pretreatment, making the enzymatic conversion more efficient. The high digestibility of glucan can be obtained after the bio-treatment and alkaline pretreatment at near room-temperature (30 degrees C), and the maximum digestibility increased 14% in comparison with that after the sole alkaline pretreatment. The bio-treatment enhanced delignification and glucan digestibility more significantly when the alkaline pretreatment was performed at lower severity. Additionally, Nuclei Growth model with a time-dependent rate constant can describe well the delignification and xylan loss. Results indicated that the bio-treatment increased the rate constant of initial reaction, but accelerated the decline of rate constant during alkaline pretreatment.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Luoyu Road 1037, Wuhan 430074, China.
authors.forename: Hongbo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Wanqing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Ji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Fuying
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Xiaoyu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Weixin
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhong
mesh_terms: D000468:Alkalies / Q000737:chemistry*; D005658:Fungi / Q000378:metabolism*; D005936:Glucans / Q000378:metabolism*; D007700:Kinetics; D008031:Lignin / Q000378:metabolism*; D014990:Xylans / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D000468:Alkalies; D005936:Glucans; D014990:Xylans; D008031:Lignin