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The Synergic Relationship Between Xylan Removal and Enhanced Cellulose Digestibility for Bioethanol Production: Reactive Area, Crystallinity, and Inhibitation

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Abstract

Hemicellulosic fraction is thought to act as a barrier, preventing the access of cellulase to cellulose. The impact of xylan removal, by both of the chemical and biological processes, on the cellulose accessibility was comparatively studied. Poplar holocellulose with 24.7 % xylan was taken as the starting material, and the gradual removal of xylan was achieved by successive treatments with increasing NaOH concentration. The data indicated that partial removal of hemicelluloses, not complete, favored the crystal configuration transformation of cellulose and then the lignocellulose/biomass enzymatic digestibility/saccharification. The maximum enzymatic efficiency (94.6 %) was achieved when cellulose II was formed as the NaOH concentration higher than 2.0 M. With the supplement of xylanase, the inhibitory effect from oligosaccharides was probably reduced, but the accumulation of xylose still negatively affected the cellulase cocktails. From the economic perspective, the xylanase loading of 5.0 IU/g xylan was proposed and 1.2-fold increment of cellulose hydrolysis was final obtained.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the grants from the Research Fund for the Jiangsu Key Lab of Biomass-based Green Fuels and Chemicals (JSBGFC1205), Guangxi Key Lab of Chemistry and Engineering of Forest Products (GXFC14-05), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (TD2011-11). Special thanks to Youtell Biochemical Co., Ltd. (Shanghai) for their generous gift of cellulase and xylanase. We also thank our colleagues for their valuable suggestions during the course of this work.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Human participants and/or animals were not involved in research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Key Laboratory of Lignocellulosic Chemistry, College of Material Science and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Haiyan Yang, Jinghuan Chen, Qian Chen, Kun Wang & Run-Cang Sun

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  1. Haiyan Yang
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  2. Jinghuan Chen
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  3. Qian Chen
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  4. Kun Wang
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  5. Run-Cang Sun
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Correspondence to Kun Wang or Run-Cang Sun.

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Yang, H., Chen, J., Chen, Q. et al. The Synergic Relationship Between Xylan Removal and Enhanced Cellulose Digestibility for Bioethanol Production: Reactive Area, Crystallinity, and Inhibitation. Bioenerg. Res. 8, 1847–1855 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-015-9642-x

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