Hydrothermal co-hydrolysis of corncob/sugarcane bagasse/Broussonetia papyrifera blends: Kinetics, thermodynamics and fermentation

Abstract

Biorefinery of biomass blends can achieve sustainable development of biofuel production. Herein, three lignocellulosic wastes with significant differences in chemical composition—namely corncob (CC), sugarcane bagasse (SB), and Broussonetia papyrifera (BP)—were selected to investigate their hydrothermal co-hydrolysis kinetics and thermodynamics of different biomass blends. Activation energies of hemicellulose decomposition (Ea1, 90.59 kJ/mol) for CC/SB were lower than those for CC (126.12 kJ/mol) and CC/SB/BP (153.62 kJ/mol). BP (having a high content of nitrogen sources) loading weakened the acidic autohydrolysis of CC/SB hemicellulose, but yielded stable products as indicated by the negative entropy value for CC/SB/BP hydrolysis. Cumulative feedback inhibition occurred among different biomass, and it could be minimized by controlling the blending ratio. The highest total xylose yield was 83.64% for CC/SB with a mass ratio of 2:1. Moreover, biomass blend of CC/SB/BP enabled complete utilization of hexose, pentose and amino acids by co-production of ethanol and microalga biomass.