Effective Saccharification of Corn Stover Using Low-Liquid Aqueous Ammonia Pretreatment and Enzymatic Hydrolysis

• Published in: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 23; no. 5; p. 1050
• Main Authors: Truong, Nguyen Phuong Vi, Kim, Tae Hyun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 01.05.2018; MDPI
• Subjects: alkaline pretreatment; Ammonia; Ammonia - chemistry; aqueous ammonia; cellulosic sugar; enzymatic digestibility; Glucans - chemistry; Hydrolases - chemistry; lignocellulosic biomass; Variance analysis; Zea mays - chemistry; lignocellulosic biomass; alkaline pretreatment; aqueous ammonia; cellulosic sugar; enzymatic digestibility
• ISSN: 1420-3049; 1420-3049
• DOI: 10.3390/molecules23051050

Low-liquid aqueous ammonia (LLAA) pretreatment using aqueous ammonia was investigated to enhance enzymatic saccharification of corn stover. In this method, ground corn stover was simply contacted with aqueous ammonia mist (ammoniation step), followed by pretreatment at elevated temperature (90–150 °C) for an extended period (24–120 h) at different solid/liquid (S/L) ratios (0.29, 0.47 or 0.67), termed a pretreatment step. After that, excess (unreacted) ammonia was removed by evaporation, and the pretreated material was immediately saccharified by an enzyme without a washing step. The effects of key reaction parameters on both glucan digestibility and XMG digestibility were evaluated by analysis of variance (ANOVA). Under the best pretreatment conditions [S/L = 0.47, 0.16 (g NH3)/(g biomass), 90 °C, 24 h], LLAA pretreatment enhanced enzymatic digestibility from 23.1% for glucan and 11.3% for XMG (xylan + galactan + mannan) of untreated corn stover to 91.8% for glucan and 72.6% for XMG in pretreated solid.