Heliyon (Aug 2023)

Optimizing monosaccharide production from liquid hot water pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of grass-clover press cake

  • Nicolai Sundgaard Bekker,
  • Saqib Sohail Toor,
  • Kamaldeep Sharma,
  • Thomas Helmer Pedersen,
  • Lars Haastrup Pedersen

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 8
p. e18448

Abstract

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In the present study, clover-grass press cake was treated by liquid hot water at temperatures of 180–200 °C for a reaction time of 5–10 min. Evaluation of pretreatments was based on the monosaccharide yield after enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated slurry and solid fraction, respectively. Extraction of up to 48% hemicellulose and 4% cellulose was observed during pretreatment. The optimal pretreatment conditions were identified as 190 °C and 10 min resulting in monosaccharide yields of 90% and 73% of the theoretical maximum by slurry and solid conversion, respectively. At optimal conditions, the C6 monosaccharide yield (83–90%) was fairly equal compared to the C5 monosaccharide yield (56–89%), which increased by slurry conversion due to near-complete monomerization of soluble xylo-oligosaccharides. In this study, we showed that clover-grass press cake possesses considerable potential as feedstock for production of fermentable sugars in a biorefinery context.

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