Biodiesel and biohydrogen production from cotton-seed cake in a biorefinery concept.

Biodiesel production from cotton-seed cake (CSC) and the pretreatment of the remaining biomass for dark fermentative hydrogen production was investigated. The direct conversion to biodiesel with alkali free fatty acids neutralization pretreatment and alkali transesterification resulted in a biodiesel with high esters content and physicochemical properties fulfilling the EN-standards. Blends of cotton-seed oil methyl esters (CME) and diesel showed an improvement in lubricity and cetane number. Moreover, CME showed good compatibility with commercial biodiesel additives. On the basis of conversion of the remaining CSC to sugars fermentable towards hydrogen, the optimal conditions included removal of the oil of CSC and pretreatment at 10% NaOH (w/w dry matter). The extreme thermophilic bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus showed good hydrogen production, 84-112% of the control, from NaOH-pretreated CSC and low hydrogen production, 15-20% of the control, from the oil-rich and not chemically pretreated CSC, and from Ca(OH)2-pretreated CSC.

A two-stage pretreatment approach to maximise sugar yield and enhance reactive lignin recovery from poplar wood chips.

A two-stage pretreatment approach, employing steam followed by organosolv treatment, was assessed for its ability to fractionate and recover most of the hemicellulose, lignin and cellulose components of poplar wood chips. A mild steaming stage was initially used to maximise hemicellulose sugar recovery, with 63% of the original xylan solubilised and recovered after this stage and close to 90% recovered in total. Rather than hindering subsequent organosolv delignification, the prior steam treatment enhanced lignin solubilisation with more than 66% of the original lignin removed after the two-stage pretreatment. The extracted lignin contained at least equal or greater amounts of functional groups as compared to the lignin solubilised after a single-stage organosolv pretreatment. More than 98% of the original cellulose was recovered after the two-stage pretreatment and 88% of the cellulose could be hydrolysed to glucose at enzyme loading of 5FPU/g cellulose after 72h.

Integration of first and second generation biofuels: fermentative hydrogen production from wheat grain and straw.

Integrating of lignocellulose-based and starch-rich biomass-based hydrogen production was investigated by mixing wheat straw hydrolysate with a wheat grain hydrolysate for improved fermentation. Enzymatic pretreatment and hydrolysis of wheat grains led to a hydrolysate with a sugar concentration of 93.4 g/L, while dilute-acid pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of wheat straw led to a hydrolysate with sugar concentration 23.0 g/L. Wheat grain hydrolysate was not suitable for hydrogen production by the extreme thermophilic bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus at glucose concentrations of 10 g/L or higher, and wheat straw hydrolysate showed good fermentability at total sugar concentrations of up to 10 g/L. The mixed hydrolysates showed good fermentability at the highest tested sugar concentration of 20 g/L, with a hydrogen production of 82-97% of that of the control with pure sugars. Mixing wheat grain hydrolysate with wheat straw hydrolysate would be beneficial for fermentative hydrogen production in a biorefinery.

Effect of pretreatment severity on the conversion of barley straw to fermentable substrates and the release of inhibitory compounds.

The production of fermentable substrates from barley straw under various process conditions was studied. Pretreatment included chemical pretreatment with dilute-acid followed by enzymatic hydrolysis; the pretreatment conditions were expressed in a combined severity factor, CS, which ranged in the present study from -1.6 to 1.1. Considering the production of fermentable sugars and the release of inhibitory compounds, the optimal pretreatment conditions were 170°C, 0% sulfuric acid and 60 min, corresponding to CS -0.4. Under these conditions, 21.4 g glucose/L, 8.5 g xylose/L, and 0.5 g arabinose/L were produced, while 0.1g HMF/L, 0.4 g furfural/L, 0.0 g levulinic acid/L, 0.0 g formic acid/L, and 2.1g acetic acid/L were released. The ratio of Σ sugars/Σ inhibitors proved to be a good tool for evaluating the suitability of a hydrolysate for fermentation purposes.

Fermentative hydrogen production from pretreated biomass: a comparative study.

The aim of this work was to evaluate the potential of employing biomass resources from different origin as feedstocks for fermentative hydrogen production. Mild-acid pretreated and hydrolysed barley straw (BS) and corn stalk (CS), hydrolysed barley grains (BG) and corn grains (CG), and sugar beet extract (SB) were comparatively evaluated for fermentative hydrogen production. Pretreatments and/or enzymatic hydrolysis led to 27, 37, 56, 74 and 45 g soluble sugars/100 g dry BS, CS, BG, CG and SB, respectively. A rapid test was applied to evaluate the fermentability of the hydrolysates and SB extract. The thermophilic bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus showed high hydrogen production on hydrolysates of mild-acid pretreated BS, hydrolysates of BG and CG, and SB extract. Mild-acid pretreated CS showed limited fermentability, which was partially due to inhibitory products released in the hydrolysates, implying the need for the employment of a milder pretreatment method. The difference in the fermentability of BS and CS is in strong contrast to the similarity of the composition of these two feedstocks. The importance of performing fermentability tests to determine the suitability of a feedstock for hydrogen production was confirmed.