Planetary mill pretreatment for improving sugar production

This study will present the effects of planetary mill pretreatment on producing sugar from lignocellulosic biomass. The use of chemical catalysts for lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment causes producing toxic byproducts and fermentable inhibitors. Here, we used only physical method to improve sugar production by reducing size and crystallinity of biomass. Milling parameters such as condition (dry/wet), ball size and milling time were optimized to improve glucose production. Finally, the enzymatic hydrolysis of planetary milled pinus rigida resulted in a glucose yield of 31 g/L (84.02%) without biomass loss while the pretreated sample contained only 0.072±0.003g/L soluble phenolic compounds. We also tested the feasibility of the facile butanol production by using planetary milled biomass. This method eliminates the need for washing and transfer of the biomass prior to enzymatic pretreatment. Fermentation of the hydrolysate samples by Clostridium beijerinckii NCIMB8052 gave slightly better butanol yields than cultures grown in a typical lab media (P2), with final concentrations of 6.91 and 6.66g/L, respectively.