title: Breakdown of hierarchical architecture in cellulose during dilute acid pretreatments.
abstract: Cellulose is an attractive candidate as a feedstock for sustainable bioenergy because of its global abundance. Pretreatment of biomass has significant influence on the chemical availability of cellulose locked in recalcitrant microfibrils. Optimizing pretreatment depends on an understanding of its impact on the microscale and nanoscale molecular architecture. X-ray scattering experiments have been performed on native and pre-treated maize stover and models of cellulose architecture have been derived from these data. Ultra small-angle, very small-angle and small-angle X-ray scattering (USAXS, VSAXS and SAXS) probe three different levels of architectural scale. USAXS and SAXS have been used to study cellulose at two distinct length scales, modeling the fibrils as ~30 Å diameter rods packed into ~0.14 μm diameter bundles. VSAXS is sensitive to structural features at length scales between these two extremes. Detailed analysis of diffraction patterns from untreated and pretreated maize using cylindrical Guinier plots and the derivatives of these plots reveals the presence of substructures within the ~0.14 μm diameter bundles that correspond to grouping of cellulose approximately 30 nm in diameter. These sub-structures are resilient to dilute acid pretreatments but are sensitive to pretreatment when iron sulfate is added. These results provide evidence of the hierarchical arrangement of cellulose at three length scales and the evolution of these arrangements during pre-treatments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115 USA.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115 USA.
authors.forename: Hideyo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Inouye
authors.affiliation: National Synchrotron Light Source, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973 USA.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Chemical and Biosciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401 USA.
authors.forename: Michael E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Himmel
authors.affiliation: Chemical and Biosciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401 USA.
authors.forename: Melvin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tucker
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115 USA ; Department of Bioengineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115 USA.
authors.forename: Lee
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Makowski
keywords: Cellulose; Guinier analysis; Hierarchical architecture; Multi-Angle X-ray scattering