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Effects of Delignification on Crystalline Cellulose in Lignocellulose Biomass Characterized by Vibrational Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy and X-ray Diffraction

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Abstract

Delignification, a common practice in the pulping industry, has been proposed and explored as a means to selectively remove lignin from lignocellulosic biomass and, thus, increase enzyme accessibility for cellulose hydrolysis. However, without knowing structural changes of cellulose in biomass, it is difficult to fully understand the effects of the delignification process on cellulose hydrolysis. In this study, the amount and aggregation of crystalline cellulose in hardwood biomass delignified using oxygen and sodium chlorite as reactive agents were examined with vibrational sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results indicated that the amount of crystalline cellulose and the XRD crystallite size increased with both oxygen and chlorite delignification processes. In addition, the “α-cellulose equivalent” fraction estimated by SFG spectroscopy increased greater than glucan amount with the delignification process. Changes in crystal size might be due to the aggregation of cellulose crystals, along with the increase in crystalline cellulose amount.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Subcontract No. XGB-3-23024-01 with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, under Prime Contract No. DE-AC36-08-GO28308 with the US Department of Energy. The portion of the sample preparation and XRD work was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea under Award No. 2011-0025029.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Kabindra Kafle, Christopher M. Lee & Seong H. Kim

  2. Department of Forest Biomaterials, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA

    Heenae Shin, Justin Zoppe & Sunkyu Park

  3. Biosciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, 80401, USA

    David K. Johnson

  4. Department of Forest Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Heenae Shin & Sunkyu Park

Authors
  1. Kabindra Kafle
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  2. Christopher M. Lee
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  4. Justin Zoppe
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Correspondence to Seong H. Kim or Sunkyu Park.

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Kafle, K., Lee, C.M., Shin, H. et al. Effects of Delignification on Crystalline Cellulose in Lignocellulose Biomass Characterized by Vibrational Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy and X-ray Diffraction. Bioenerg. Res. 8, 1750–1758 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-015-9627-9

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