University of Toledo

Suganit Systems Inc.

Constance Ann Schall

Sasidhar Varanasi

Anantharam Dadi

Jared L Anderson

Kripa Rao

Praveen Paripati

Guneet Kumar

Samira Vasheghani Farahani

Anantharam Prasad Dadi

A method for pretreating lignocellulosic biomass having a lignin component, a hemicellulose component, and a cellulose component, for conversion to sugar is disclosed. Also disclosed is the pretreated lignocellulosic biomass resulting from the method.

Enhancement of lignocellulose saccharification via a low temperature ionic liquid pre-treatment scheme

The present invention relates to a method for lignocellulosic conversion to sugar using an ionic liquid pretreatment for the saccharification of lignocellulosic biomass. Thus, cellulose, hemicellulose, when hydrolyzed into their sugars, can be converted to ethanol fuel through well-established fermentation technologies. These sugars also form the feedstocks for production of a variety of chemical and polymers. The complex structure of the biomass required pretreatment to enable efficient saccharification of cellulose and hemicellulose components to their constituent sugars.

Biomass pretreatment

Dissolution, partial dissolution or softening of cellulose in an ionic liquid (IL) and its subsequent contact with anti-solvent produces regenerated cellulose more amorphous in structure than native cellulose, which can be separated from the IL/anti-solvent mixture by mechanical means such as simple filtration or centrifugation. This altered morphology of IL-treated cellulose allows a greater number of sites for enzyme adsorption with a subsequent enhancement of its saccharification. The IL-treated cellulose exhibits significantly improved hydrolysis kinetics with optically transparent solutions formed after about two hours of reaction. This provides an opportunity for separation of products from the catalyst (enzyme) easing enzyme recovery. With an appropriate selection of enzymes, initial hydrolysis rates for IL-treated cellulose were up to two orders of magnitude greater than those of untreated cellulose. Due to the non-volatility of the IL, anti-solvent can be easily stripped from the IL/anti-solvent mixture for recovery and recycle of both the ionic liquid and anti-solvent.

Saccharifying cellulose

A method for lignocellulose conversion to sugar with improvements in yield and rate of sugar production has been developed by using ionic liquid pretreatment. This new pretreatment strategy substantially improves the efficiency (in terms of yield and reaction rates) of saccharification of lignocellulosic biomass. Cellulose and hemicellulose, when hydrolyzed into their sugars, can be converted into ethanol fuel through well established fermentation technologies. These sugars also form the feedstocks for production of variety of chemicals and polymers. The complex structure of biomass requires proper pretreatment to enable efficient saccharification of cellulose and hemicellulose components to their constituent sugars. Current pretreatment approaches suffer from slow reaction rates of cellulose hydrolysis (by using the enzyme cellulase) and low yields.

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Sylvania, OH, United States of America

Constance Ann Schall