Glycell – Leaf Resources' pretreatment process for the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fuels and chemicals

Development of effective low cost lignocellulosic biomass pre-treatment has been a significant challenge for the emerging biofuel and green chemical industries. Here we present a biorefinery concept that uses crude glycerol from biodiesel production as a renewable solvent for effective deconstruction of a range of wood and grass lignocellulosic fibre sources. The continuous pretreatment process has been demonstrated at the pilot scale. Advantages of this process over dilute acid pretreatments include:

• higher yields of cellulose,
• separation of hemicellulose and cellulose sugars,
• faster and more quantitative enzymatic hydrolysis of the cellulose fraction, and
• reduced formation of sugars decomposition products that inhibit fermentation

Optional deacetylation in the Glycell preconditioning step further reduces inhibitory compounds in sugars products. The Glycell process can be easily incorporated into existing dilute acid processes, with attractively short pay-back time on the additionally capital cost of glycerol recovery. Results of pilot scale testing and a preliminary techno-economic assessment will be presented.