Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The challenge of IL pretreatment of biomass

The challenge of IL pretreatment of biomass:

1. Moisture of biomass. Some level of water will reduce the efficiency and rate of decrystallization of cellulose, what is the tolerance of water level of biomass for IL function?

2. Particle size reduction. Lignocellulosics is the complex of lignin, cellulose, and hemicelluloses and is more difficult to degrade than cellulose due to strong interactions between lignin and glucose. So, particle size reduction is needed before IL pretreatment

3. IL recovery. After treatment, water is usually added to extract IL out. The question is whether we can extract 100% of the IL used out of the sugar solution by simple extraction. The IL lost in the sugar will cause 1) the cost increase of IL usage 2) the potential toxicity on microorganism during fermentation because IL is salt

4. Separation of sugar and IL. Since some ILs is miscible with water, sugar will dissolve in ILs. The separation of sugar will become a cost and technological issue.

5. The issue of hemicelluloses and lignin. How to handle these two compounds?

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