Monday, May 2, 2011
Grand Ballroom C-D, 2nd fl (Sheraton Seattle)
The accurate and timely characterization of biomass feedstocks and pretreated intermediates is crucial to the emerging biofuels industry. NREL has developed rapid biomass analysis methods using Near Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and Projection to Latent Structures (PLS) multivariate analysis. NIR methods analyzing washed and dried acid pretreated solids have been successful at NREL. Here we describe the analysis of whole acid pretreated slurries, which include the hydrolyzed liquid fraction and pretreated entrained solids. Analyzing slurries to obtain analysis of the entrained solids removes the time consuming step of washing and drying the solids. Statistics and validation of the finished methods are presented and compared to traditional washed dried solids methods. Aspects of NIR development are briefly covered, as are the results of NIR methods to analyze acid pretreated liquors, the isolated liquid portion of a pretreated slurry.