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Thermo-Mechanical Pretreatment of Feedstocks

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Green Biomass Pretreatment for Biofuels Production

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science ((GREENCHEMIST))

Abstract

Pretreatment is the first step to open up the complex structure of feedstock and to facilitate the access of hydrolytic enzymes to carbohydrates. Researchers are paying utmost care to pretreatment since it has pervasive impact in downstream processing. Numerous pretreatments have been investigated in the past with various degrees of success and still several new investigations are under progress. Extrusion/thermo-mechanical process is a continuous viable pretreatment and easy to adapt at industry scale with flexibility in process modifications. Agricultural residues and dedicated energy crops such as corn stover, prairie cord grass, wheat straw, rice straw, rape straw, barley straw, wheat bran, soybean hull, switchgrass, miscanthus, big bluestem, and forest products such as poplar, pine, Douglas fir, and eucalyptus were subjected to extrusion pretreatment with or without chemicals. This chapter provides an overview of extrusion pretreatments including the mechanism influencing extruder and feedstock parameters, evaluation of pretreatment efficiency including production of potential fermentation inhibitors, torque requirements, and direction for future work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Food and Nutrition, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, WI, 54751, USA

    Chinnadurai Karunanithy

  2. Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD, 57007, USA

    Kasiviswanathan Muthukumarappan

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  1. Chinnadurai Karunanithy
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  2. Kasiviswanathan Muthukumarappan
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Correspondence to Chinnadurai Karunanithy .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Ohio University, Athens, 45701, Ohio, USA

    Tingyue Gu

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Karunanithy, C., Muthukumarappan, K. (2013). Thermo-Mechanical Pretreatment of Feedstocks. In: Gu, T. (eds) Green Biomass Pretreatment for Biofuels Production. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science(). Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6052-3_2

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