title: Surface and ultrastructural characterization of raw and pretreated switchgrass.
abstract: The US Department of Energy-funded Biomass Refining CAFI (Consortium for Applied Fundamentals and Innovation) project has developed leading pretreatment technologies for application to switchgrass and has evaluated their effectiveness in recovering sugars from the coupled operations of pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis. Key chemical and physical characteristics have been determined for pretreated switchgrass samples. Several analytical microscopy approaches utilizing instruments in the Biomass Surface Characterization Laboratory (BSCL) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have been applied to untreated and CAFI-pretreated switchgrass samples. The results of this work have shown that each of the CAFI pretreatment approaches on switchgrass result in different structural impacts at the plant tissue, cellular, and cell wall levels. Some of these structural changes can be related to changes in chemical composition upon pretreatment. There are also apparently different structural mechanisms that are responsible for achieving the highest enzymatic hydrolysis sugar yields.
authors.affiliation: Chemical and Biosciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401, USA.
authors.forename: Bryon S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Donohoe
authors.forename: Todd B
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Vinzant
authors.forename: Richard T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Elander
authors.forename: Venkata Ramesh
authors.initials: VR
authors.lastname: Pallapolu
authors.forename: Y Y
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Rebecca J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Garlock
authors.forename: Venkatesh
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Balan
authors.forename: Bruce E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Dale
authors.forename: Youngmi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Nathan S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Mosier
authors.forename: Michael R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Ladisch
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Falls
authors.forename: Mark T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Holtzapple
authors.forename: Rocio
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sierra-Ramirez
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Mirvat A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ebrik
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Redmond
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Charles E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Wyman
authors.forename: Bonnie
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hames
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: Ryan E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Warner
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D000641:Ammonia / Q000378:metabolism; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D002473:Cell Wall / Q000378:metabolism / Q000648:ultrastructure; D003116:Color; D060146:Ecotype; D006868:Hydrolysis; D020894:Microfibrils / Q000648:ultrastructure; D008897:Panicum / Q000166:cytology / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D016062:Porosity; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D000641:Ammonia