Tuesday, May 3, 2011
The current state-of-art technologies for the bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass to biofuels generally require a high severity (high temperature and pressure) pretreatment to improve enzymatic digestibility of the otherwise recalcitrant substrate. Besides improving enzymatic accessibility, there are many unintended consequences of such pretreatments that require further scrutiny. In a recent study, we showed that cellulose microfibrils that are subjected to high energy ultrasonication form spherical aggregates with diameters in the range of 40 – 120 nm. Moreover, these cellulose nanoparticles were observed to be resistant to hydrolysis by purified Trichoderma reesei Cel7A. We present results from an on-going study of the mechanism of formation of the spherical particles, and their resistance hydrolysis by other cellulase monocomponents.