Monday, April 30, 2012
Napoleon Ballroom C-D, 3rd fl (Sheraton New Orleans)
For the bioconversion process of lignocellulosic biomass, various alkaline pretreatment methods have been investigated to improve enzymatic digestibility. SAA is a simple ammonia pretreatment method which preserves almost 100% glucan and greater than 80% xylan in solid and removes a significant percentage of lignin (~60% removal). LMAA is also ammonia pretreatment method which preserve all carbohydrates and lignin in solid; in this method, biomass with ~50% moisture is contacted with anhydrous ammonia at near ambient conditions, and then pretreated at moderate temperature.
In this study, soaking in aqueous ammonia (SAA) and low-moisture anhydrous ammonia (LMAA) pretreatments were optimized and compared for pretreatment of barley straw.
In order to optimize pretreatment conditions of both methods, several reaction parameters such as reaction temperature and reaction time were chosen as the most significant factors to be correlated with enzyme digestibility. Conversion of the barley straw pretreated by the two methods to ethanol by E. coli KO11 in SSF mode also was performed.