Monday, April 30, 2012
Napoleon Ballroom C-D, 3rd fl (Sheraton New Orleans)
Pretreatment is necessary to open up the structure of plant biomass for enzymatic and microbial conversion. Liquid hot water (hydrothermal, aqueous) pretreatment typically results in two streams, a solid stream with pretreated biomass and a liquid hydrolysate stream containing solubilized hemicellulose. Hemicellulose represents about 30-40% of total carbohydrate in plant biomass. Its efficient utilization is important to increase the total product yield. However, efficient utilization of pretreatment hydrolysate is challenging because it is typically inhibitory to cellulase and microorganisms. In this study, we aim to compare the hydrolysates obtained after batch and flowthrough pretreatments by testing their inhibition of Trichoderma reesei cellulase hydrolysis and Clostridium thermocellum growth. Inhibition results will be reported for both the solid and liquid fractions of flowthrough hydrolysate. We will also report the inhibition of hydrolysate fractions obtained at different pretreatment temperatures to evaluate the effect of temperature on generation of inhibitors in the hydrolysate.