Elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum) dilute acid hydrolysate contains 34.6 g/L total sugars. The potential of lipid production by oleaginous yeast Trichosporon cutaneum grown on elephant grass acid hydrolysate was investigated for the first time. During the fermentation process on the elephant grass acid hydrolysate, glucose, xylose, and arabinose could be well utilized as carbon sources by T. cutaneum. Interestingly, xylose was almost no use before glucose was consumed completely. This illustrated that simultaneous saccharification of xylose and glucose by T. cutaneum did not occur on elephant grass acid hydrolysate. The highest biomass, lipid content, lipid yield, and lipid coefficient of T. cutaneum were measured after the sixth day of fermentation and were 22.76 g/L, 24.0%, 5.46 g/L, and 16.1%, respectively. Therefore, elephant grass is a promising raw material for microbial oil production by T. cutaneum.
With hydrothermal reaction, lignocellulosic biomass can be efficiently converted into furfural (FF) and levulinic acid (LA), both of which are key platform compounds that can be used for the subsequent preparation of aviation fuels. In order to reduce the acid concentration in traditional hydrolysis and provide a reaction system with good catalytic activity, we propose a biomass conversion route as dilute acid hydrolysis coupled with solid acid catalysis. Firstly, at different temperatures, the hemicellulose and cellulose in corn stover were step-hydrolyzed by sulfuric acid solution with a concentration of 0.9 wt. % to produce xylose and glucose, with conversion reaching 100% and 97.3%, respectively. Subsequently, a new resin-derived carbon-based solid acid catalyst was used to catalyze the aforementioned saccharide solutions to obtain FF with yield of 68.7 mol % and LA of 70.3 mol %, respectively. This work provides a promising approach for the efficient production of bio-aviation fuel precursors.
In this work nanofiltration technology has been employed for removal of inhibitors and recovery of monosaccharides from dilute acid lignocellulose hydrolysates. The influences of feed solution pH, permeate flux, and Na2SO4 concentration on the rejection of monosaccharides and inhibitors were investigated. The results showed that the pH for the separation of carboxylic acids and furans from monosaccharides should be as low as possible. With increase of Na2SO4 concentration carboxylic acid and furan rejection decreased. Subsequently, the Donnan steric pore and dielectric exclusion model coupled with mass balance was used to predict the rejection of solutes at different permeate fluxes. In order to select a suitable permeate flux and operating time, multi-objective optimization was carried out to obtain the maximum total inhibitor removal efficiency, the maximum monosaccharide recovery rate, and the minimum water consumption. The optimal operating conditions were then verified using the real hydrolysate as feed solutions. More specifically, for the treatment of 6 L of a hydrolysate solution, 13 L of water and a treatment time of 35 min were required. This process allowed the removal of 90% inhibitors, while 93.55% glucose, 90.75% xylose, and 90.53% arabinose were recovered. Finally, a batch column equipped with a strong acid cation exchange resin was employed to recover the monosaccharides from the hydrolysate. Using water as an eluent, 95.37% of the sulfuric acid and 94.87% of the monosaccharides were recovered. In all, we demonstrated that the combination of nanofiltration with electrolyte exclusion chromatography is a promising integrated process for the recovery of monosaccharides and inorganic acids from dilute acid corncob hydrolysates.
危险品化学品经营许可证（带存储）