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A novel cleaning process for industrial production of xylose in pilot scale from corncob by using screw-steam-explosive extruder

Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering volume 37, pages 2425–2436 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

Steam explosion is the most promising technology to replace conventional acid hydrolysis of lignocellulose for biomass pretreatment. In this paper, a new screw-steam-explosive extruder was designed and explored for xylose production and lignocellulose biorefinery at the pilot scale. We investigated the effect of different chemicals on xylose yield in the screw-steam-explosive extrusion process, and the xylose production process was optimized as followings: After pre-impregnation with sulfuric acid at 80 °C for 3 h, corncob was treated at 1.55 MPa with 9 mg sulfuric acid/g dry corncob (DC) for 5.5 min, followed by countercurrent extraction (3 recycles), decoloration (activated carbon dosage 0.07 g/g sugar, 75 °C for 40 min), and ion exchange (2 batches). Using this process, 3.575 kg of crystal xylose was produced from 22 kg corncob, almost 90 % of hemicellulose was released as monomeric sugar, and only a small amount of by-products was released (formic acid, acetic acid, fural, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural, and phenolic compounds were 0.17, 1.14, 0.53, 0.19, and 1.75 g/100 g DC, respectively). All results indicated that the screw-steam-explosive extrusion provides a more effective way to convert hemicellulose into xylose and could be an alternative method to traditional sulfuric acid hydrolysis process for lignocellulose biorefinery.

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Abbreviations

SSEE:

Screw-steam-explosive extrusion

DC:

Dry corncob

TSAH:

Traditional sulfuric acid hydrolysis

HMF:

Hydroxymethylfurfural

RSM:

Response surface methodology

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

CI:

Crystallinity index

HPLC:

High-performance liquid chromatography

FC:

Folin–Ciocalteu

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to the National High-tech Research and Development Program (2012AA022303, 2014AA021906, 2014AA021903) and the National Natural Science Foundation (31170076) for their generous financial supports.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. College of Life Science and Technology, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    Hong-Jia Zhang, Xiao-Guang Fan, Wen-Ya Wang & Qi-Peng Yuan

  2. Research Center of Futaste Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd, Yucheng, 251200, China

    Xue-Liang Qiu

  3. College of Mechanic and Electronic Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    Qiu-Xiang Zhang & Shuang-Xi Li

  4. College of Material Science and Technology, Beijing Forest University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Li-Hong Deng

  5. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180, USA

    Mattheos A. G. Koffas

  6. Department of Microbiology, College of Life Science, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Dong-Sheng Wei

Authors
  1. Hong-Jia Zhang
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  2. Xiao-Guang Fan
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  3. Xue-Liang Qiu
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  4. Qiu-Xiang Zhang
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  5. Wen-Ya Wang
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  6. Shuang-Xi Li
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  7. Li-Hong Deng
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  8. Mattheos A. G. Koffas
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  9. Dong-Sheng Wei
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  10. Qi-Peng Yuan
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Wen-Ya Wang or Qi-Peng Yuan.

Additional information

Hong-Jia Zhang and Xiao-Guang Fan have contributed equally to this work.

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Zhang, HJ., Fan, XG., Qiu, XL. et al. A novel cleaning process for industrial production of xylose in pilot scale from corncob by using screw-steam-explosive extruder. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 37, 2425–2436 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-014-1219-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-014-1219-0

Keywords

  • Xylose
  • Pilot scale
  • Steam explosion
  • Cleaning process
  • Extrusion