Monday, April 30, 2012
Napoleon Ballroom C-D, 3rd fl (Sheraton New Orleans)
Enzymatic hydrolysis is one of the critical steps to produce bio-ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass. The sugar yield in enzymatic hydrolysis is significantly affected by the enzyme accessibility of the biomass substrates. However, as a complex definition, the “enzyme accessibility” is hard to quantify, which may involve multiple physiochemical properties of biomass such as ultrastructure, chemical composition and mass transfer limitation. This study evaluates the enzyme accessibility by measuring pore-size distribution through multiple methods. Simon’s stain measurement, NMR and size exclusion measurement were subjected to corn stover substrates pretreated by dilute acid steam explosion at various severities. The different methods allow us to validate the pore-size distribution results through comparison. Finally, the relationship between enzymatic hydrolysis yield and pore-size distribution is explored.