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Oxidative Lime Pretreatment of Dacotah Switchgrass

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Abstract

Oxidative lime pretreatment increases the enzymatic digestibility of lignocellulosic biomass primarily by removing lignin. In this study, recommended pretreatment conditions (reaction temperature, oxygen pressure, lime loading, and time) were determined for Dacotah switchgrass. Glucan and xylan overall hydrolysis yields (72 h, 15 FPU/g raw glucan) were measured for 105 different reaction conditions involving three different reactor configurations (very short term, short term, and long term). The short-term reactor was the most productive. At the recommended pretreatment condition (120 °C, 6.89 bar O2, 240 min), it achieved an overall glucan hydrolysis yield of 85.2 g glucan hydrolyzed/100 g raw glucan and an overall xylan yield of 50.1 g xylan hydrolyzed/100 g raw xylan. At this condition, glucan oligomers (1.80 g glucan recovered/100 g glucan in raw biomass) and xylan oligomers (25.20 g xylan recovered/100 g xylan in raw biomass) were recovered from the pretreatment liquor, which compensate for low pretreatment yields.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, contract number DE-FG36-07GO17102.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Matthew Falls & Mark T. Holtzapple

  2. Grupo de Conversion de Energia, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia

    Rocio Sierra-Ramirez

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  1. Matthew Falls
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  2. Rocio Sierra-Ramirez
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  3. Mark T. Holtzapple
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Correspondence to Matthew Falls.

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Falls, M., Sierra-Ramirez, R. & Holtzapple, M.T. Oxidative Lime Pretreatment of Dacotah Switchgrass. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 165, 243–259 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-011-9247-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-011-9247-6

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