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Abstract
This study investigated the effects of chemical pretreatment and disk-milling conditions on energy consumption for size-reduction and the efficiency of enzymatic cellulose saccharification of a softwood. Lodgepole pine wood chips produced from thinnings of a 100-year-old unmanaged forest were pretreated by hot-water, dilute-acid, and two SPORL processes (Sulfite Pretreatment to Overcome Recalcitrance of Lignocellulose) at acid charge on oven dry (od) wood of 0% and 2.21%. The pretreated wood chips were then milled using a laboratory disk mill under various solids-loadings and disk-plate gaps to produce substrates for enzymatic hydrolysis. We found that post-chemical-pretreatment size-reduction of forest biomass can decrease size-reduction energy consumption by 20–80% depending on the pretreatment applied under 20% solids-loading and a disk-plate gap of 0.76 mm in milling. SPORL with a sodium bisulfite charge of 8% and sulfuric acid charge of 2.21% on wood was the most effective in decreasing size-reduction energy consumption. Solids-loading had the most significant effect on diskmilling energy. When solids-loading was reduced from 30% to 3%, disk-milling energy could be decreased by more than a factor of 10 for wood chips pretreated by both SPORL and dilute-acid at an acid charge of 2.21%. The enzymatic hydrolysis glucose yields (EHGY) from the substrates produced by all pretreatments were independent of the solids-loading in milling, indicating that these energy savings in size reduction can be realized without affecting EHGY. When wood chips were pretreated by SPORL with 2.21% acid charge, size-reduction energy consumption was decreased to less than 50 Wh/kg od wood at a practical solids-loading of approximately 10–20%, equivalent to that used in size-reduction of agriculture biomass, with excellent EHGY of about 370 g per kg od wood. Similar effects on size-reduction energy savings and excellent EHGY were also achieved when large disk-plate gaps (up to 1.52 mm studied) were applied in disk-milling of wood chips pretreated by SPORL with acid.
Keywords
Size reduction,
disk-milling,
disk refining,
forest biomass,
woody biomass,
enzymatic hydrolysis,
saccharification,
SPORL,
fuelwood,
biomass energy,
biomass,
utilization,
biotechnology,
energy consumption,
pretreatment,
sugars,
cellulose,
hydrolysis,
lodgepole pine,
sulfuric acid,
enzymes,
biotechnology,
industrial applications,
wood chips,
lignocellulose,
biodegradation,
glucose,
feedstock,
hemicellulose,
biomass fuel,
bioconversion,
biorefining,
wood extractives,
chemical utilization,
chips
Citation
Zhu, W.; Zhu, J.Y.; Gleisner, R.; Pan, X.J. 2010. On energy consumption for size-reduction and yields from subsequent enzymatic saccharification of pretreated lodgepole pine. Bioresource Technology. 101: 2782-2792.
