Abstract
This study examined acid-catalyzed mechanocatalytic pretreatment of birch sawdust without a separate impregnation step. Catalyst amount and pretreatment time were the key variables. Pretreated material was mixed with water for hydrolysis (100 °C, 60 min). The efficient release of total reducing sugars from birch sawdust is significant to the path towards biofuels and biochemicals. Based on the results, the structure and surface of birch sawdust changed as a function of mechanocatalytic pretreatment. Milling time caused significant transformations in birch structure and also increased the yields of reducing sugars. The highest yield of total reducing sugar from pretreated sawdust was 23.0% after 30 min of hydrolysis with 1.0 mmol/g acid catalyst, whereas the highest glucose yield was 23.8 g/kg (1.5 mmol/g catalyst, 60 min) and the highest xylose yield was 37.5 g/kg (1.0 mmol/catalyst, 30 min). Overall, acid-catalyzed mechanocatalytic treatment seems to improve sugar yields from birch.
Highlights
Woody biomass is an abundant renewable source for manufacturing fuels, chemicals, heat, and power, and it cannot be used for food pro duction [1,2,3,4]
Mechanocatalytic pretreatment was applied by a planetary ball mill, with sulfuric acid as the acid catalyst, in order to produce mono saccharides from birch sawdust
The amount of acid catalyst compared to the amount of birch had an impact on the structure of the birch and on the sugar yields
Summary
Woody biomass is an abundant renewable source for manufacturing fuels, chemicals, heat, and power, and it cannot be used for food pro duction [1,2,3,4]. The utilization of woody biomass in bio refineries to produce value-added chemicals and fuels transforms bio polymers, such as cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, into platform chemicals, like sugars [1,2,4]. This kind of bioeconomic point of view is required to face social and environmental challenges like climate change and the growth of world population. Physical and physicochemical pretreatments, such as steam ex plosion [9,18] and electron beam irradiation [19], can be used to increase sugar release from birch In addition to these methods, different pretreatment methods can be combined.
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