Pretreatment of corn cobs using 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate and dimethyl sulfoxide to enhance enzymatic saccharification

• Published in: Biomass conversion and biorefinery Vol. 13; no. 8; pp. 6941 - 6952
• Main Authors: Kuntapa, Manita, Sudaprasert, Kaokanya, Tachaapaikoon, Chakrit
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.06.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biomass; Biotechnology; Cellulose; Conversion; Corn; Crystalline cellulose; Crystallinity; Dimethyl sulfoxide; Energy; Ionic liquids; Lignocellulose; Original Article; Pretreatment; Renewable and Green Energy; Saccharification; Dimethylsulfoxide; 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate; Delignification; Ionic liquid pretreatment; Corn cobs; Co-solvent
• ISSN: 2190-6815; 2190-6823
• DOI: 10.1007/s13399-021-01702-8

Ionic liquid (IL) pretreatment is a promising approach for pretreating biomass before converting it into sugars but associated with high costs. The combination of [BMIM]BF 4 : DMSO pretreatment shows the highest delignification, whereas cellulose and hemicellulose recoveries are similar in all pretreatments. The lignin of corn cob pretreated with [BMIM]BF 4 : DMSO has been removed to the amount of1.59- and 1.40-fold of the pretreatment with [EMIM]OAc: DMSO and [BMIM]OAc: DMSO, resulting in a highly porous structure of corn cobs. Furthermore, the delignification of corn cobs pretreated with [BMIM]BF 4 : DMSO can reduce the crystallinity of biomass, regarding a decrease of lateral order index (LOI) and the crystallinity index (CI) of 1.08- and 1.07-fold and 1.04- and 1.03-fold of crystalline cellulose from the pretreatment with [EMIM]OAc: DMSO and [BMIM]OAc: DMSO, respectively. Additionally, the preceding delignification of [BMIM]BF 4 : DMSO pretreatment followed by enzymatic hydrolysis can result in the highest cellulose conversion of 92.98 ± 0.02% when compared with cellulose conversion of [EMIM]OAc: DMSO at 82.84 ± 0.06% and [BMIM]OAc: DMSO at 85.97 ± 0.03%. The combination of using [BMIM]BF 4 featuring DMSO to pretreat lignocellulose biomass is firstly reported in this work.