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Deconstruction of hybrid poplar to monomeric sugars and aromatics using ethanol organosolv fractionation

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Abstract

Acidic ethanol organosolv fractionation of hybrid poplar was investigated to determine the impact of pretreatment conditions on the resulting biomass and lignin properties and to assess the subsequent deconstruction of the cell wall biopolymers to monomeric sugars and aromatics. It was found that increasing reaction severity (i.e., time and temperature) during the organosolv fractionation increased the rate of delignification and xylan solubilization while the lignins recovered from the liquors were found to exhibit lower degrees of polymerization. Glucose hydrolysis yields > 75% at moderate enzyme loadings (30 mg/g glucan) could be obtained for the more severe pretreatment conditions. The lignins recovered from the pretreatment liquors were subjected to fractionation using a sequential extraction with solvents of increasing polarity. It was found that the low molar mass, low polydispersity lignins increased in pretreatment liquors with increasing time and temperature and were concentrated in the methanol fraction while a high molar mass fraction was extracted with the diethyl ether. We hypothesize that the extraction of the high molar mass fraction with diethyl ether is due to partial ethyl O-alkylation of lignin hydroxyl groups during pretreatment, rendering lignins more soluble in the non-polar solvent. Finally, depolymerization of unfractionated lignins by thioacidolysis resulted in mass yields of aromatic monomers ranging from 80 to 157 mg monomer per gram of lignin and that these yields exhibited strong positive correlations to the lignin β-O-4 content, molar mass, and strong negative correlations to the pretreatment temperature.

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Acknowledgements

J.B. received support to perform research in Dr. Hodge’s laboratory through an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Abroad Fellowship from RWTH Aachen University, Germany. M.K.Y. was supported by the University Scholars Program at Montana State University, while Cliff Foster was funded through the DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (DOE BER Office of Science DE-FC02-07ER64494). The authors would like to thank Dr. Brian Tripet (Montana State University Department of Biochemistry) for performing the NMR analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biochemical Engineering, Aachener Verfahrenstechnik, RWTH Aachen University, Forckenbeckstr. 51, D-52074, Aachen, Germany

    Janosch Bär

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Thanaphong Phongpreecha & Jacob D. Crowe

  3. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, 59717, USA

    Sandip Kumar Singh, Melisa Kral Yilmaz & David B. Hodge

  4. Department of Bioengineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Melisa Kral Yilmaz

  5. DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824-1601, USA

    Cliff E. Foster

  6. Division of Sustainable Process Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, 97187, Luleå, Sweden

    David B. Hodge

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  1. Janosch Bär
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Bär, J., Phongpreecha, T., Singh, S.K. et al. Deconstruction of hybrid poplar to monomeric sugars and aromatics using ethanol organosolv fractionation. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 8, 813–824 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-018-0330-x

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