Monday, May 2, 2011
Grand Ballroom C-D, 2nd fl (Sheraton Seattle)
Corn stover is a heterogeneous material, consisting of stalks, leaves, husks, tassels, and cobs. Each anatomic fraction differs in chemical composition as well as response to dilute acid pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis. Variances in the composition of bulk corn stover also occur as a result of harvesting time and location. Previous studies have found significant variance in dilute acid pretreatment effectiveness over several corn stover feedstocks. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the impact of acetyl group removal on the pretreatment yields of corn stover of varying composition Dilute acid pretreatment has proven to be a promising pretreatment technology for the biochemical production of ethanol from biomass. Removal of acetyl groups from native corn stover by alkaline de-esterification shows potential operating and capital cost savings by lowering acid loading in pretreatment and enzyme usage in saccharification. In this study, a variety of corn stover feedstocks have been investigated to test the robustness of the deacetylation-pretreatment-saccharification process.