Liquid Hot Water Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass at Lab and Pilot Scale

Jose M (Chema) Jimenez-Gutierrez,Luuk A M Van Der Wielen,Peter C Van Der Meer,Rob A J Verlinden,Adrie J J Straathof

doi:10.3390/pr9091518

Jose M (Chema) Jimenez-Gutierrez, Luuk A M Van Der Wielen + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9091518

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Journal: Processes	Publication Date: Aug 27, 2021
Citations: 19	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Delft University of Technology, University of Limerick

Abstract

Liquid hot water pretreatment is considered to be a promising method for increasing biomass digestibility due to the moderate operational conditions without chemical additions. A necessary step towards the scalability of this pretreatment process is performing pilot plant trials. Upscaling was evaluated with a scaling factor of 500, by using 50 mL in the laboratory and 25 L in a pilot plant batch reactor. Pretreatment times were varied from 30 to 240 min, and temperatures used were 180–188 °C, while applying similar heating profiles at both scales. The initial mass fraction of poplar wood chips ranged from 10% to 16%. Liquid hot water pretreatment at laboratory and pilot scale led to analogous results. The acetic acid analysis of the liquid and solid fractions obtained after pretreatment indicated that complete deacetylation of poplar biomass can be achieved.

Highlights

The continuous increase in greenhouse gas emissions and the depletion of fossil carbon sources reinforce a transition from oil-based towards bio-based production processes.This motivates extensive research on development of production of bio-chemicals, bioenergy and bio-materials from renewable sources [1]
liquid hot water (LHW) pretreatment of poplar biomass has been compared at laboratory and pilot scale
At either scale there was a considerable extent of hemicellulose hydrolysis and formation of degradation compounds, such as formic acid and furfural

Summary

Introduction

The continuous increase in greenhouse gas emissions and the depletion of fossil carbon sources reinforce a transition from oil-based towards bio-based production processes. This motivates extensive research on development of production of bio-chemicals, bioenergy and bio-materials from renewable sources [1]. Pretreatment of biomass is one of the key technologies in bio-based industry, and it has been extensively studied due to the complexity of the internal structure of the lignocellulosic material [3,4]. The severity of the pretreatment increases the extent of carbohydrate release and the extent of these degradation reactions [9,10]

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