Abstract
ABSTRACT Background: The objective of the present work was to investigate the influence of a pre-treatment of microbial-rich digestate (liquid mesophilic anaerobic digestate - AD-supernatant) on the morphology, crystallinity, and thermal stability of cellulose pulp fiber. Results: The six most abundant bacteria in the AD-supernatant were determined by 16S analysis. The bacteria population was comprised mostly of Bacteroides graminisolvens (66%) and Parabacteroides chartae (28%). Enzymatic activity from the bacteria partially removed the amorphous components and increased the crystallinity and crystallite size of the cellulose substrate. The fiber pulp was incubated in AD-supernatant for 5, 10, and 20 days. The X-ray diffraction data provided evidence that the amorphous portion of the cellulose was more readily and quickly hydrolyzed than the crystalline portion. The longest incubation times (20 days) resulted in substantial deconstruction of the cellulose fiber structure and decreased the thermal degradation temperature. Conclusion: The anaerobic digestate is inexpensive and could be used to effectively aid in the pre-treatment of cellulose on large scale transformation processes, e.g. for making biofuels, cellulose micro/nanofiber production or engineered fiber-based materials.
Highlights
IntroductionA two-component cellulose model has been used to describe cellulose chains as containing both crystalline (ordered) and amorphous (less ordered) domains (French, 2014)
A two-component cellulose model has been used to describe cellulose chains as containing both crystalline and amorphous domains (French, 2014)
Selective enzymatic hydrolysis resulted in higher crystalline content
Summary
A two-component cellulose model has been used to describe cellulose chains as containing both crystalline (ordered) and amorphous (less ordered) domains (French, 2014). The relative degree of crystallinity and recalcitrance of cellulosic materials is of great importance because of its bearing on their deconstruction for biorefinery purposes or application and functional performance of plant fibers (Yang et al, 2011). The enzymatic modification of cellulose may help improve fiber processing technologies including pulping and pulp bleaching (Moreira et al, 2015). It could improve fiber deconstruction and generation of micro/nanofibrils (Tonoli et al, 2016, Durães et al, 2020) that can be used for specific applications such as in fiber-reinforced composites (Fonseca et al, 2016), films (Silva et al, 2020; Silva et al, 2019), and paper (Viana et al, 2018) or as a feedstock for biofuels (Yang et al, 2011). The objective of the present work was to investigate the influence of a pre-treatment of microbial-rich digestate (liquid mesophilic anaerobic digestate – AD-supernatant) on the morphology, crystallinity, and thermal stability of cellulose pulp fiber
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