Dual Utilization of Lignocellulose Biomass and Glycerol Waste to Produce Fermentable Levoglucosan via Fast Pyrolysis.

Yingchuan Zhang,Fenglin Chen,Yaxiang Wu,Yanru Zhang,Feixiang Xu,Liqun Jiang

doi:10.3389/fchem.2022.847767

Yingchuan Zhang, Fenglin Chen + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2022.847767

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Abstract

Glycerol waste was combined with microwave to pretreat lignocellulose before fast pyrolysis. After pretreatment, most alkali and alkaline earth metals (87.9%) and lignin (52.6%) were removed, and a higher crystallinity was obtained. Comparatively, glycerol waste combined with microwave was proven to be more efficient than glycerol with conventional heating. During fast pyrolysis, higher content of levoglucosan in glycerol waste–pretreated products (27.5%) was obtained, compared with those pretreated by pure glycerol (18.8%) and untreated samples (5.8%). Production of fermentative toxic aldehyde and phenol by-products was also inhibited after glycerol waste treatment. Following mechanistic study had validated that microwave in glycerol waste solvent could effectively ameliorate structure and components of lignocellulose while selectively removing lignin. Notably, under the optimal condition, the levoglucosan content in pyrolytic products was enhanced significantly from 5.8% to 32.9%. In short, this study provided an archetype to dually utilize waste resources for ameliorating lignocellulose structure and precisely manipulating complex fast pyrolysis.

Highlights

IntroductionBecause of the global energy and environmental issues, development of environment-friendly technology for utilizing sustainable resources is urgently needed (Shen et al, 2019; Qian et al, 2021)
This discrimination was inferred with relation to the polar nature of glycerol waste to preferably absorb alkaline earth metals (AAEMs) ions, derived from the multicomponent of carboxylic acids and metals
Componential, and crystallinity analysis, lignocellulose pretreated by glycerol waste was found to be ameliorated thoroughly

Summary

Introduction

Because of the global energy and environmental issues, development of environment-friendly technology for utilizing sustainable resources is urgently needed (Shen et al, 2019; Qian et al, 2021). A traditional way of valorizing lignocellulose is to hydrolyze it to fermentable sugars by enzymes or acids and convert those into valued chemicals via large-scale fermentation (Clomburg et al, 2017), whereas technical limitations, such as a tedious and expensive process and a low yield of fermentable products versus uncontrollable byproducts, restrict the viability of industrial intermediation of lignocellulose (Lin and Lu, 2021). For its utilization in lignocellulose conversion, it has been reported that fast pyrolysis of cellulose can yield up to 70.1 wt %-concentrated commercial levoglucosan for further fermentation (Kwon et al, 2007). The economics of fast pyrolysis technology to obtain fermentable intermediates from biomass and further conversion has been evaluated to be competent with traditional direct enzymatic and acid hydrolysis (Vivek et al, 2017)

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