Issue 19, 2024

Unraveling the secrets of harnessing a surfactant-modified strategy in organosolv pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass for efficient fermentable sugar production

Abstract

Alkaline-catalyzed organosolv pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass affords excellent delignification, yielding a holocellulose-rich substrate for fermentable sugar production. However, complete lignin removal is impractical, and residual lignin also exacerbates negative effects on subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis. Herein, a novel strategy of developing surfactant-assisted organosolv pretreatment (Triton-X 100, AEO 9 and Tween 80) for in situ lignin modification was proposed to overcome this issue. The results indicated that the pretreated substrates showed considerable enzymatic hydrolyzability with a 15.7%–38.3% higher sugar yield compared to the control group without surfactants. Surfactants could graft on both residual and dissolved lignin through etherification, forming α-etherified lignin, though without significantly changing the component distribution and substrate-related properties. Quantum chemical calculations provided theoretical evidence of strong H-bonding and pronounced interaction energy between lignin and surfactants (maximally at −48.4 kcal mol−1). In particular, this surfactant modification decreased the aliphatic –OH and phenolic –OH contents of residual lignin by 16.0%–22.4% and 13.8%–28.8%, respectively. The reduction of –OH groups mitigated non-productive adsorption between lignin and cellulases via H-bonding interaction, which exhibited a significant correlation with the increased enzymatic hydrolyzability (>−0.9). Overall, this study offers valuable insight into the fundamental understanding of the mechanism involved in lignin modification during surfactant-assisted pretreatment and lignin–enzyme interaction during enzymatic hydrolysis. The new findings underscore the potential application of surfactants in organosolv pretreatment to achieve a feasible approach for developing an efficient enzyme-mediated lignocellulosic sugar platform.

Graphical abstract: Unraveling the secrets of harnessing a surfactant-modified strategy in organosolv pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass for efficient fermentable sugar production

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 Jun 2024
Accepted
22 Aug 2024
First published
23 Aug 2024

Green Chem., 2024,26, 10123-10138

Unraveling the secrets of harnessing a surfactant-modified strategy in organosolv pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass for efficient fermentable sugar production

G. Song, H. Zhang, M. Madadi, Z. Chen, H. Wang, A. Xia, A. Samimi, C. Sun, X. Meng, A. J. Ragauskas and F. Sun, Green Chem., 2024, 26, 10123 DOI: 10.1039/D4GC02775B

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements