1. Effect of pelleting on the enzymatic digestibility of corn stover.
- Author
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Chen X, Freitas Dos Santos AC, Ramirez Gutierrez DM, Song P, Aston JE, Thompson DN, Dooley JH, Ladisch MR, and Mosier NS
- Subjects
- Hydrolysis, Biomass, Zea mays chemistry, Cellulase chemistry
- Abstract
Pelleting of lignocellulosic biomass to improve its transportation, storage and handling impacts subsequent processing and conversion. This work reports the role of high moisture pelleting in the enzymatic digestibility of corn stover prior to pretreatment, together with associated substrate characteristics. Pelleting increases the digestibility of unpretreated corn stover, from 8.2 to 15.5% glucan conversion, at 5% solid loading using 1 FPU Cellic® CTec2 per g solids. Compositional analysis indicates that loose and pelleted corn stover have similar non-dissolvable compositions, although their extractives are different. Enzymatic hydrolysis of corn stover after size reduction to normalize particle sizes and removal of extractives confirms that pelleting improves corn stover digestibility. Such differences may be explained by the decreased particle size, improved substrate accessibility, and hydrolysis of cross-linking structures induced by pelleting. These findings are useful for the development of processing schemes for sustainable and efficient use of lignocellulose., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Michael Ladisch was CTO at Mascoma, a cellulosic ethanol company, from 2007 to 2013, and consultant in 2014, before Mascoma was acquired by Lallemand and by Renmatix. He holds equity now administered by Enchi., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2023
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