Industrial Application

Cellulose Conversion
B Y: E s t ra da, Jovie ma e B.
Lignocellulosic Material
 Lignocellulosic Material

• Refers to plant dry matter

• Also called lignocellulosic biomass
• Composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin
• Classification of lignocellulosic biomass
• virgin biomass
• waste biomass
• energy crops
 Classification of lignocellulosic biomass
• Virgin biomass
• all naturally occurring terrestrial plants
• Waste biomass
• a low value byproduct of various industrial sectors
• Energy crops
• crops with high yield of lignocellulosic biomass produced to serve as
a raw material for production of second generation biofuel
 Composition of lignocellulose in several
sources on dry basis (Sun and Cheng, 2002)
Cellulose
• An organic compound with the formula (C6H10O5)n
• An important structural component of the primary cell wall of
green plants
• The most abundant organic polymer on Earth
Cellulose Pretreatment
• Physical Pretreatment
• Chemical Pretreatment
 Physical Pretreatment
• Refers to any pretreatment not involving chemicals.
• Mechanical
• Milling
• Reduction of particle size is often needed to make material
handling easier and to increase surface/volume ratio.
• done by chipping, milling or grinding
• different mills are used to break down the lignocellulosic material
Chemical Pretreatment
• Alkali pretreatment
• Acid pretreatment
• Biological pretreatment
 Alkali pretreatment
• The addition of bases to biomass
• Leading to :
• an increase of internal surface by swelling
• a decrease of polymerization degree and crystallinity
• destruction of links between lignin and other polymers
• and lignin breakdown.
 Commonly Used Bases
• Calcium or sodium hydroxide
• Usually lime (calcium hydroxide) or sodium hydroxide is used
• Process conditions are relatively mild but reaction times can be long
• mild conditions prevent condensation of lignin, resulting in a high lignin solubility,
especially for biomass with a low lignin content such as softwood and grasses.

• Ammonia (at elevated temperatures )

• reduces lignin content and removes some hemicellulose while
decrystallising cellulose.
 Acid pretreatment
• No enzymes are needed subsequent to the acid hydrolysis.
• Two types of Acid pretreatment
• Weak acid hydrolysis
• Uses mostly diluted sulfuric acid
• Strong acid hydrolysis
• Concentrated strong acids such as H2SO4 and HCl have been widely used
• Advantages of concentrated acid hydrolysis are the high monomeric sugar yield as
well as mild temperature conditions that are needed.
 Biological pretreatment
• The deconstruction of lignin structures in the cell wall using microbes
and/or enzymes as catalysts
• Advantages of biological pretreatments are low energy requirement and mild
operation conditions.
• the rate of biological hydrolysis is usually very low, so this pretreatment
requires long residence times
 Producing Ethanol from Cellulosic
Material
• Cellulosic material will be used as a feedstock for the production of ethanol.
• Procedure:
• cellulosic material is first pretreated
• digested with enzymes
• Fermentation