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An Efficient Strategy for Enhancing Glucose Recovery of Wheat Straw by Ionic Liquid Combined Ball Milling Pretreatment

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Abstract

The wheat straw (WS) recalcitrant nature resulting from its compositions and structures hinders the bioconversion of WS into glucose. In this study, a clean and efficient ionic liquid combined ball milling (IB) pretreatment was established to overcome structural barriers of WS, thus enhancing the accessibility and glucose recovery of WS. The proposed strategy has several advantages, including (i) the cellulose nanofibers (CNF) were directly obtained from WS by means of ionic liquid pretreatment; (ii) the dense fiber structure of CNF was rapidly destroyed by ball milling, thus increasing the cellulose accessibility; and (iii) the method can realize the fractionation of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin under mild process. Under optimal conditions, a maximal of 89.3% delignification and 92.5% hemicellulose removal was obtained with IB pretreatment, leading to glucose yield of 6.75 times that of raw WS. The samples before and after pretreatment were characterized by FTIR, TGA, XRD, SEM, and TEM. The results clearly confirmed that IB pretreatment could simultaneously remove lignin and hemicellulose, reduce the cellulose crystallinity, and change the morphology of cellulose, resulting in higher glucose yield.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 21876062) and the Key R&D Program of Shandong Province (no. 2019GSF109071).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Smart Materials & Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan, 250022, China

    Ying Sui, Yu Cui, Yiming Zhao & Guoxin Sun

  2. School of Biological Science and Technology, University of Jinan, Jinan, 250022, China

    Yuanxiu Wang

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  1. Ying Sui
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  2. Yu Cui
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  4. Yiming Zhao
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Conceptualization and design: Guoxin Sun, Ying Sui; methodology: Ying Sui, Yiming Zhao; formal analysis and investigation: Ying Sui, Yuanxiu Wang; writing (original draft preparation): Ying Sui; writing (review and editing): Yu Cui, Guoxin Sun; Supervision: Guoxin Sun.

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Correspondence to Guoxin Sun.

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Sui, Y., Cui, Y., Wang, Y. et al. An Efficient Strategy for Enhancing Glucose Recovery of Wheat Straw by Ionic Liquid Combined Ball Milling Pretreatment. Bioenerg. Res. 15, 1933–1945 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-022-10404-6

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