Improvement of sugar yields from corn stover using sequential hot water pretreatment and disk milling.
Efficient pretreatment is essential for economic conversion of lignocellulosic feedstocks into monosaccharides for biofuel production. To realize high sugar yields with low inhibitor concentrations, hot water or dilute acid pretreatment followed by disk milling is proposed. Corn stover at 20% solids was pretreated with hot water at 160-200°C for 4-8min with and without subsequent milling. Hot water pretreatment and disk milling acted synergistically to improve glucose and xylose yields by 89% and 134%, respectively, compared to hot water pretreatment alone. Hot water pretreated (180°C for 4min) and milled samples had the highest glucose and xylose yields among all hot water pretreated and milled samples, which were comparable to samples pretreated with 0.55% dilute acid at 160°C for 4min. However, samples pretreated with 1% dilute acid at 150°C for 4min and disk milled had the highest observed glucose (87.3%) and xylose yields (83.4%).
Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1304 West Pennsylvania Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, United States.
Sun Min
SM
Kim
Bioenergy Research Unit, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Peoria, IL 61604, United States(1).
Bruce S
BS
Dien
Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1304 West Pennsylvania Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, United States.
M E
ME
Tumbleson
Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1304 West Pennsylvania Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, United States.
Kent D
KD
Rausch
Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1304 West Pennsylvania Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, United States. Electronic address: vsingh@illinois.edu.
Vijay
V
Singh
D056804:Biofuels; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D000431:Ethanol; D005947:Glucose / Q000378:metabolism*; D006868:Hydrolysis; D010316:Particle Size; D018520:Plant Shoots / Q000737:chemistry; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry; D014994:Xylose / Q000378:metabolism*; D003313:Zea mays / Q000737:chemistry*
D056804:Biofuels; D014867:Water; D000431:Ethanol; D014994:Xylose; D005947:Glucose
Corn stover; Dilute acid pretreatment; Disk milling; Hot water pretreatment; Mechanical grinding