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Nitric-acid hydrolysis of Miscanthus giganteus to sugars fermented to bioethanol

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Abstract

Miscanthus giganteus (M. giganteus) is a promising feedstock for the production of bioethanol or biochemicals. Using only dilute nitric acid, this work describes a two-step process for hydrolyzing hemicellulose and cellulose to fermentable sugars. Primary variables were temperature and reaction time. The solid-to-liquid mass ratio was 1:8. No enzymes were used. In the first step, M. giganteus was contacted with 0.5 wt.% nitric acid at temperatures between 120 and 160°C for 5 to 40 min. The second step used 0.5 or 0.75 wt.% nitric acid at temperatures between 180 and 210°C for less than 6 min. Under selected conditions, almost all hemicellulose and 58% cellulose were transferred to the liquid phase. Small amounts of degradation products were observed. The xylose solution obtained from the nitric-acid hydrolysis was fermented for 96 h and the glucose solution for 48 h to yield 0.41 g ethanol/g xylose and 0.46 g ethanol/g glucose. To characterize residual solids and the liquor from both steps, nuclear-magneticresonance (NMR) spectroscopy was performed for each fraction. The analytical data indicate that the liquid phase from Steps 1 and 2 contain little lignin or lignin derivatives.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy Biosciences Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94704, USA

    Fuxin Yang, Waheed Afzal, Kun Cheng, Nian Liu, Markus Pauly, Alexis T. Bell & John M. Prausnitz

  2. Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Fuxin Yang, Waheed Afzal, Nian Liu, Alexis T. Bell & John M. Prausnitz

  3. MOE Key Laboratory of Thermo-Fluid Science and Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710049, China

    Fuxin Yang & Zhigang Liu

  4. School of Engineering, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

    Waheed Afzal

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  1. Fuxin Yang
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  2. Waheed Afzal
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  3. Kun Cheng
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  4. Nian Liu
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  7. Zhigang Liu
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  8. John M. Prausnitz
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Correspondence to John M. Prausnitz.

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Yang, F., Afzal, W., Cheng, K. et al. Nitric-acid hydrolysis of Miscanthus giganteus to sugars fermented to bioethanol. Biotechnol Bioproc E 20, 304–314 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12257-014-0658-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12257-014-0658-4

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