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Cell wall disruption in low temperature NaOH/urea solution and its potential application in lignocellulose pretreatment

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Abstract

Pretreatments of wheat straw by NaOH/urea solvent at low temperature were investigated. To understand the cell wall disruption during this low temperature process, and its impacts on enzymatic hydrolysis, morphology, cellulose crystal structure, and chemical properties were investigated by using the following instruments: optical microscopy, confocal laser scanning microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectra, and X-ray diffraction. The results implied that the deconstruction of plant cell wall at low temperature was attributed to disruption of the hydrogen bonds in cellulose and solubilization of hemicellulose and lignin. Meanwhile, the pretreatment approach resulted in almost full recovery of cellulose, approximately 60 % of lignin and 70 % of xylan removal, respectively. It’s interesting to note that cellulose I crystal structure in the substrate pretreated at a solid loading of 10 % was partially changed to cellulose II structure, while wheat straw pretreated at a higher solid loading of 20 %, retained the cellulose I structure. Almost complete saccharification (>95 %) of cellulose in pretreated substrates was achieved at a relatively low cellulase loading of 10 FPU/g substrates within 48 h. The loss of xylan in pretreated substrate had a negative effect on the total sugar recovery.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Alfred D. French for much help in analyzing the XRD data. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from national natural science foundation of China (31300493), start-up support (13JDG018) and young scholar program of Jiangsu University, and open fundings from the key laboratory of development and application of rural renewable energy, ministry of agriculture (2013007), key laboratory of pulp and paper science & technology of the ministry of education of China, Qilu University of Technology (08031344), and a project funded by Jiangsu planned projects for postdoctoral research fund (1501072C) and PAPD. We appreciate Yanxiao Li and Xiujuan Sun (both from Analysis and Test Centre of Jiangsu University) for carrying out CLSM and XRD experiments. Leu Shao-Yuan from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Zhang Chao from Beihang University are acknowledged for proof reading.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biofuels Institute, School of the Environment, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China

    Qianqian Wang, Wei Wei, Gakai Peter Kingori & Jianzhong Sun

  2. Key Laboratory of Development and Application of Rural Renewable Energy, Ministry of Agriculture, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Qianqian Wang

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  1. Qianqian Wang
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  2. Wei Wei
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Correspondence to Qianqian Wang.

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Wang, Q., Wei, W., Kingori, G.P. et al. Cell wall disruption in low temperature NaOH/urea solution and its potential application in lignocellulose pretreatment. Cellulose 22, 3559–3568 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-015-0767-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-015-0767-z

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