Abstract
This work investigated fermentable sugar production by modifying the traditional classical mechanical system used by Pulp & Paper Mills as a potential biorefinery step regarding energy consumption and sugar yield. The study explored the effectiveness of thermal pretreatment, with and without the addition of NaOH, followed by a disk refining pretreatment using various gap and consistency operating conditions through a pilot-scale disk refining system. The chemical components and sugar streams obtained from woody biomass using thermal and/or chemical refining pretreatments were characterized and analyzed. The energy consumption of the disk refining system was also analyzed. The results show that the effects of biomasses on chemical components are mainly caused by the removal of lignin content in the thermochemical pretreatment with the addition of NaOH (5% w/w dry biomass). The combination of thermochemical and disk refining pretreatments could significantly reduce the energy consumption. Moreover, decreasing the refining consistency from 15 to 5% (w/w) and increasing the refining gap from 0.15 to 1.00 mm further decreased refining energy consumption up to 90%. At the same time, the thermochemical and disk refining pretreatment significantly increased the sugar yield. This yield, however, decreases as larger gaps are used in the refining process. Therefore, when using existing mechanical refining equipment, a modified thermochemical disk refining pretreatment can produce a higher sugar yield (an increase 35%), and lower the energy consumption (a decrease 62%), when compared to a typical mechanical refining process.
Graphical Abstract
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Scarlat, N., Dallemand, J.-F., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Nita, V.: The role of biomass and bioenergy in a future bioeconomy: policies and facts. Environ. Dev. 15, 3–34 (2015)
Biermann, C.J.: Handbook of Pulping and Papermaking. Academic Press, San Diego (1996)
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In: FAOSTAT (ed.). FAOSTAT Database, Rome (2016)
Zhu, J., Chandra, M.S., Gleisner, R., Gilles, W.T., Gao, J., Marrs, G., Anderson, D., Sessions, J.: Case studies on sugar production from underutilized woody biomass using sulfite chemistry. Tappi J. 14(9), 577–583 (2015)
Park, J., Jones, B., Koo, B., Chen, X., Tucker, M., Yu, J.-H., Pschorn, T., Venditti, R., Park, S.: Use of mechanical refining to improve the production of low-cost sugars from lignocellulosic biomass. Bioresour. Technol. 199, 59–67 (2015)
Schell, D.J., Harwood, C.: Milling of lignocellulosic biomass. Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol. 45(1), 159–168 (1994)
Li, B., Li, H., Zha, Q., Bandekar, R., Alsaggaf, A., Ni, Y.: Review: effects of wood quality and refining process on TMP pulp and paper quality. Bioresources 6(3), 3569–3584 (2006)
Jacquet, N., Maniet, G., Vanderghem, C., Delvigne, F., Richel, A.: Application of steam explosion as pretreatment on lignocellulosic material: a review. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 54(10), 2593–2598 (2015)
Overend, R.P., Chornet, E., Gascoigne, J.: Fractionation of lignocellulosics by steam-aqueous pretreatments. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 321(1561), 523–536 (1987)
Ramos, L.P.: The chemistry involved in the steam treatment of lignocellulosic materials. Quim. Nova 26(6), 863–871 (2003)
Wang, Y.: Pretreatment and enzymatic treatment of spruce: a functional designed wood components separation for a future biorefinery. Ph.D. Thesis, KTH Royal Institute of Technology: (2014)
Carvalho, D.M.d., Queiroz, J.H.d., Colodette, J.L.: Assessment of alkaline pretreatment for the production of bioethanol from eucalyptus, sugarcane bagasse and sugarcane straw. Ind. Crops Prod. 94, 932–941 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2016.09.069
Chen, X., Shekiro, J., Pschorn, T., Sabourin, M., Tao, L., Elander, R., Park, S., Jennings, E., Nelson, R., Trass, O.: A highly efficient dilute alkali deacetylation and mechanical (disc) refining process for the conversion of renewable biomass to lower cost sugars. Biotechnol. Biofuels 7(1), 98 (2014)
Muhic, D.: High consistency refining of mechanical pulps during varying refining conditions: High consistency refiner conditions effect on pulp quality. Master Thesis, Linköping University (2008)
Luukkonen, A., Olson, J.A., Martinez, D.M.: Low consistency refining of mechanical pulp: relationships between refiner operating conditions and pulp properties. Nord. Pulp Pap. Res. J. 27(5), 882–885 (2012)
Gharehkhani, S., Sadeghinezhad, E., Kazi, S.N., Yarmand, H., Badarudin, A., Safaei, M.R., Zubir, M.N.M.: Basic effects of pulp refining on fiber properties—a review. Carbohydr. Polym. 115, 785–803 (2015)
Van Soest, P.v., Robertson, J., Lewis, B.: Methods for dietary fiber, neutral detergent fiber, and nonstarch polysaccharides in relation to animal nutrition. J. Dairy Sci. 74(10), 3583–3597 (1991)
Miller, G.L.: Use of dinitrosalicylic acid reagent for determination of reducing sugar. Anal. Chem. 31(3), 426–428 (1959)
Kim, S.M., Dien, B.S., Singh, V.: Promise of combined hydrothermal/chemical and mechanical refining for pretreatment of woody and herbaceous biomass. Biotechnol. Biofuels 9(1), 1 (2016)
Zhu, W., Zhu, J.Y., Gleisner, R., Pan, X.J.: On energy consumption for size-reduction and yields from subsequent enzymatic saccharification of pretreated lodgepole pine. Bioresour. Technol. 101(8), 2782–2792 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2009.10.076
Luukkonen, A.: Development of a methodology to optimize low consistency refining of mechanical pulp. Ph.D. Thesis, University of British Columbia: (2011)
Öhgren, K., Bura, R., Saddler, J., Zacchi, G.: Effect of hemicellulose and lignin removal on enzymatic hydrolysis of steam pretreated corn stover. Bioresour. Technol. 98(13), 2503–2510 (2007)
Zhu, J.: Physical pretreatment—woody biomass sizereduction—for forest biorefinery. In: vol. 1067. pp. 89–107. ACS Symposium Series, (2011)
Han, Q.: Autohydrolysis pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass for bioethanol production. Ph.D. Thesis, North Carolina State University: (2014)
Zhu, L.: Fundamental study of structural features affecting enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass. Ph.D. Thesis, Texas A&M University (2006)
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Mr. Alain Marchand and Bryan Brousseau for their assistance. They would also like to sincerely thank BiofuelNet for the grant support.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chen, J., Adjallé, K., Barnabé, S. et al. Mechanical and Thermal Pretreatment Processes for Increasing Sugar Production from Woody Biomass Via Enzymatic Hydrolysis. Waste Biomass Valor 10, 2057–2065 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-018-0217-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-018-0217-x