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Abstract Background Lignocellulosic biomass is considered as a potential source for sustainable biofuels. In the conversion process, a pretreatment step is necessary in order to overcome the biomass recalcitrance and allow for sufficient fermentable sugar yields in enzymatic hydrolysis. Steam explosion is a well known pretreatment method working without additional chemicals and allowing for efficient particle size reduction. However, it is not effective for the pretreatment of softwood and the harsh conditions necessary to achieve a highly digestible cellulose fraction lead to the partial degradation of the hemicellulosic sugars. Previous studies showed that the autohydrolysis pretreatreatment of softwood can benefit from the addition of 2-naphthol. This carbocation scavenger prevents lignin repolymerisation leading to an enhanced glucose yield in the subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis. Results In order to prevent the degradation of the hemicellulose, we investigated in this study a two-stage 2-naphthol steam explosion pretreatment. In the first stage, spruce wood is pretreated at a severity which is optimal for the autocatalytic hydrolysis of the hemicellulose. The hydrolyzate containing the solubilized sugars is withdrawn from the reactor and the remaining solids are pretreated with different amounts of 2-naphthol in a second stage at a severity that allows for high glucose yields in enzymatic hydrolysis. The pretreated spruce was subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis and to simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF). In the first stage, the maximal yield of hemicellulosic sugars was 47.5% at a pretreatment severity of log $$R_0$$ R0 = 3.75 at 180 °C. In the second stage, a 2-naphthol dosage of 0.205 mol/mol lignin C9-unit increased the ethanol yield in SSF with a cellulose loading of 1% using the whole second stage pretreatment slurry by 17% from 73.6% for the control without 2-naphthol to 90.4%. At a higher solid loading corresponding to 5% w/w cellulose, the yields decreased due to higher concentrations of residual 2-naphthol in the biomass and the pretreatment liquor, but also due to higher concentrations of potential inhibitors like HMF, furfural and acetic acid. Experiments with washed solids, vacuum filtered solids and the whole slurry showed that residual 2-naphthol can inhibit the fermentation as a single inhibitor but also synergistically together with HMF, furfural and acetic acid. Conclusions This work shows that a two-stage pretreatment greatly enhances the recovery of hemicellulosic sugars from spruce wood. The presence of 2-naphthol in the second pretreatment stage can enhance the ethanol yield in SSF of steam explosion pretreated softwood at low cellulose concentrations of 1% w/w. However, with higher solid loadings of 5% w/w cellulose, the ethanol yields were in general lower due to the solid effect and a synergistic inhibition of HMF, furfural, acetic acid with residual 2-naphthol. The concentration of residual 2-naphthol tolerated by the yeast decreased with increasing concentrations of HMF, furfural, and acetic acid.

Biomass pretreatment is a mandatory step for the biochemical conversion of lignocellulose to chemicals. During pretreatment, soluble compounds are released into the prehydrolyzate that inhibit the enzymatic hydrolysis step. In this work, we investigated how the reaction conditions in steam explosion pretreatment of beechwood (severity: 3.0–5.25; temperature: 160–230 °C) influence the resulting amounts of different inhibitors. Furthermore, we quantified the extent of enzyme inhibition during enzymatic hydrolysis of Avicel in the presence of the prehydrolyzates. The amounts of phenolics, HMF, acetic acid and formic acid increased with increasing pretreatment severities and maximal quantities of 21.6, 8.3, 43.7 and 10.9 mg/gbeechwood, respectively, were measured at the highest severity. In contrast, the furfural concentration peaked at a temperature of 200 °C and a severity of 4.75. The presence of the prehydrolyzates in enzymatic hydrolysis of Avicel lowered the glucose yields by 5–26%. Mainly, the amount of phenolics and xylose and xylooligomers contributed to the reduced yield. As the maximal amounts of these two inhibitors can be found at different conditions, a wide range of pretreatment severities led to severely inhibiting prehydrolyzates. This study may provide guidelines when choosing optimal pretreatment conditions for whole slurry enzymatic hydrolysis.

Steam explosion is a well-known process to pretreat lignocellulosic biomass in order to enhance sugar yields in enzymatic hydrolysis, but pretreatment conditions have to be optimized individually for each material. In this study, we investigated how the results of a pretreatment optimization procedure are influenced by the chosen reaction conditions in the enzymatic hydrolysis. Beechwood was pretreated by steam explosion and the resulting biomass was subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis at glucan loadings of 1% and 5% employing either washed solids or the whole pretreatment slurry. For enzymatic hydrolysis in both reaction modes at a glucan loading of 1%, the glucose yields markedly increased with increasing severity and with increasing pretreatment temperature at identical severities and maximal values were reached at a pretreatment temperature of 230 °C. However, the optimal severity was 5.0 for washed solids enzymatic hydrolysis, but only 4.75 for whole slurry enzymatic hydrolysis. When the glucan loading was increased to 5%, glucose yields hardly increased for pretreatment temperatures between 210 and 230 °C at a given severity, and a pretreatment temperature of 220 °C was sufficient under these conditions. Consequently, it is important to precisely choose the desired conditions of the enzymatic hydrolysis reaction, when aiming to optimize the pretreatment conditions for a certain biomass.

Lignocellulosic biomass – such as wood, agricultural residues or dedicated energy crops – is a promising renewable feedstock for production of fuels and chemicals that is available at large scale at low cost without direct competition for food usage. Its biochemical conversion in a sugar platform biorefinery includes three main unit operations that are illustrated in this review: the physico-chemical pretreatment of the biomass, the enzymatic hydrolysis of the carbohydrates to a fermentable sugar stream by cellulases and finally the fermentation of the sugars by suitable microorganisms to the target molecules. Special emphasis in this review is put on the technology, commercial status and future prospects of the production of second-generation fuel ethanol, as this process has received most research and development efforts so far. Despite significant advances, high enzyme costs are still a hurdle for large scale competitive lignocellulosic ethanol production. This could be overcome by a strategy termed 'consolidated bioprocessing' (CBP), where enzyme production, enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation is integrated in one step – either by utilizing one genetically engineered superior microorganism or by creating an artificial co-culture. Insight is provided on both CBP strategies for the production of ethanol as well as of advanced fuels and commodity chemicals.