Dilute acid pretreatment of short rotation woody and herbaceous crops

Facilitating enzymatic digestibility of larch by in-situ lignin modification during combined acid and alkali pretreatment

To overcome the recalcitrance of residual lignins in acid-pretreated larch (AL), a combined acid and alkali pretreatment with in-situ lignin modification was developed in this study. The results showed that introducing in-situ lignin modification with 2-naphthol to acid pretreatment (160 and 180 ^oC) improved the enzymatic digestibility of AL by 12.7-14.4%, through suppressing lignin repolymerization. The obviously higher improvement (57.8-88.3%) was achieved by applying alkali post-treatment (90 ^oC) with poly (ethylene glycol) diglycidyl ether (PEGDE) on AL, mainly due to the function of in-situ lignin modification with PEGDE for reducing enzyme non-productive binding on lignins. More importantly, the synergism of 2-naphthol and PEGDE modification facilitated the enzymatic hydrolysis of AL more significantly. Its beneficial mechanism was explored by investigating the effects of in-situ lignin modification on lignin properties, including extraction yields, functional groups, and enzyme affinity of lignins. Results will give insights into establishing an efficient pretreatment of softwood biomass.

Symposium review: Technologies for improving fiber utilization

The forage lignocellulosic complex is one of the greatest limitations to utilization of the nutrients and energy in fiber. Consequently, several technologies have been developed to increase forage fiber utilization by dairy cows. Physical or mechanical processing techniques reduce forage particle size and gut fill and thereby increase intake. Such techniques increase the surface area for microbial colonization and may increase fiber utilization. Genetic technologies such as brown midrib mutants (BMR) with less lignin have been among the most repeatable and practical strategies to increase fiber utilization. Newer BMR corn hybrids are better yielding than the early hybrids and recent brachytic dwarf BMR sorghum hybrids avoid lodging problems of early hybrids. Several alkalis have been effective at increasing fiber digestibility. Among these, ammoniation has the added benefit of increasing the nitrogen concentration of the forage. However, few of these have been widely adopted due to the cost and the caustic nature of the chemicals. Urea treatment is more benign but requires sufficient urease and moisture for efficacy. Ammonia-fiber expansion technology uses high temperature, moisture, and pressure to degrade lignocellulose to a greater extent than ammoniation alone, but it occurs in reactors and is therefore not currently usable on farms. Biological technologies for increasing fiber utilization such as application of exogenous fibrolytic enzymes, live yeasts, and yeast culture have had equivocal effects on forage fiber digestion in individual studies, but recent meta-analyses indicate that their overall effects are positive. Nonhydrolytic expansin-like proteins act in synergy with fibrolytic enzymes to increase fiber digestion beyond that achieved by the enzyme alone due to their ability to expand cellulose microfibrils allowing greater enzyme penetration of the cell wall matrix. White-rot fungi are perhaps the biological agents with the greatest potential for lignocellulose deconstruction, but they require aerobic conditions and several strains degrade easily digestible carbohydrates. Less ruminant nutrition research has been conducted on brown rot fungi that deconstruct lignocellulose by generating highly destructive hydroxyl radicals via the Fenton reaction. More research is needed to increase the repeatability, efficacy, cost effectiveness, and on-farm applicability of technologies for increasing fiber utilization.

Dilute acid pretreatment of sorghum biomass to maximize the hemicellulose hydrolysis with minimized levels of fermentative inhibitors for bioethanol production

Conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into monomeric carbohydrates is economically beneficial and suitable for sustainable production of biofuels. Hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass using high acid concentration results in decomposition of sugars into fermentative inhibitors. Thus, the main aim of this work was to investigate the optimum hydrolysis conditions for sorghum brown midrib IS11861 biomass to maximize the pentose sugars yield with minimized levels of fermentative inhibitors at low acid concentrations. Process parameters investigated include sulfuric acid concentration (0.2-1 M), reaction time (30-120 min) and temperature (80-121 °C). At the optimum condition (0.2 M sulfuric acid, 121 °C and 120 min), 97.6% of hemicellulose was converted into xylobiose (18.02 mg/g), xylose (225.2 mg/g), arabinose (20.2 mg/g) with low concentration of furfural (4.6 mg/g). Furthermore, the process parameters were statistically optimized using response surface methodology based on central composite design. Due to the presence of low concentration of fermentative inhibitors, 78.6 and 82.8% of theoretical ethanol yield were attained during the fermentation of non-detoxified and detoxified hydrolyzates, respectively, using Pichia stipitis 3498 wild strain, in a techno-economical way.

Defined enzyme cocktail from the anaerobic fungus Orpinomyces sp. strain C1A effectively releases sugars from pretreated corn stover and switchgrass

The anaerobic fungus Orpinomyces strain C1A is capable of growth on various types of lignocellulosic substrates, and harbors an impressive reservoir of carbohydrate active enzymes (CAZymes). Using a minimum enzyme cocktail strategy, we constituted a four-component lignocellulolytic cocktail derived from highly transcribed C1A, and evaluated its efficacy against pretreated corn stover and switchgrass. Hydrolysis yields ranged between 65–77.4%, depending on the lignocellulosic substrate and pretreatment applied. Addition of a highly expressed anaerobic fungal swollenin improved hydrolysis yields by up to 7%. Compared to the commercial cocktail CTec2, these anaerobic fungal cocktails provided comparable or slightly lower hydrolysis yields. Further, the differences in efficacy between commercial and anaerobic cocktails were often only realized after extended (168 hr) incubations. Under certain conditions, the hydrolysis yields of the anaerobic fungal cocktail was slightly superior to that realized by CTec2. We attribute the observed high hydrolysis yields to the high specific activity and affinity of the individual enzymes of the cocktail, as well as the high level of synergy and multi-functionality observed in multiple components. Collectively, this effort provides a novel platform for constructing highly effective enzymes for biofuel production and represents the first lignocellulolytic enzyme cocktail created from anaerobic fungal enzymes.

Helically agitated mixing in dry dilute acid pretreatment enhances the bioconversion of corn stover into ethanol

BACKGROUND

Dry dilute acid pretreatment at extremely high solids loading of lignocellulose materials demonstrated promising advantages of no waste water generation, less sugar loss, and low steam consumption while maintaining high hydrolysis yield. However, the routine pretreatment reactor without mixing apparatus was found not suitable for dry pretreatment operation because of poor mixing and mass transfer. In this study, helically agitated mixing was introduced into the dry dilute acid pretreatment of corn stover and its effect on pretreatment efficiency, inhibitor generation, sugar production, and bioconversion efficiency through simultaneous saccharification and ethanol fermentation (SSF) were evaluated.

RESULTS

The overall cellulose conversion taking account of cellulose loss in pretreatment was used to evaluate the efficiency of pretreatment. The two-phase computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model on dry pretreatment was established and applied to analyze the mixing mechanism. The results showed that the pretreatment efficiency was significantly improved and the inhibitor generation was reduced by the helically agitated mixing, compared to the dry pretreatment without mixing: the ethanol titer and yield from cellulose in the SSF reached 56.20 g/L and 69.43% at the 30% solids loading and 15 FPU/DM cellulase dosage, respectively, corresponding to a 26.5% increase in ethanol titer and 17.2% increase in ethanol yield at the same fermentation conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

The advantage of helically agitated mixing may provide a prototype of dry dilute acid pretreatment processing for future commercial-scale production of cellulosic ethanol.

Using a grass substrate to compare decay among two clades of brown rot fungi

Interest in the mechanisms of wood-degrading fungi has grown in tandem with lignocellulose bioconversion efforts, yet many potential biomass feedstocks are non-woody. Using corn stover (Zea mays) as a substrate, we tracked degradative capacities among brown rot fungi from the Antrodia clade, including Postia placenta, the first brown rot fungus to have its genome sequenced. Decay dynamics were compared against Gloeophyllum trabeum from the Gloeophyllum clade. Weight loss induced by P. placenta (6.2 %) and five other Antrodia clade isolates (average 7.4 %) on corn stalk after 12 weeks demonstrated inefficiency among these fungi, relative to decay induced by G. trabeum (44.4 %). Using aspen (Populus sp.) as a woody substrate resulted in, on average, a fourfold increase in weight loss induced by Antrodia clade fungi, while G. trabeum results matched those on stover. The sequence and trajectories of chemical constituent losses differed as a function of substrate but not fungal clade. Instead, chemical data suggest that characters unique to stover limit decay by the Antrodia clade, rather than disparities in growth rate or extractives toxicity. High p-coumaryl lignin content, lacking the methoxy groups characteristically cleaved during brown rot, is among potential rate-distinguishing characters in grasses. This ineptitude among Antrodia clade fungi on grasses was supported by meta-analysis of other unrelated studies using grass substrates. Concerning application, results expose a problem if adopting the strategy of the model decay fungus P. placenta to treat corn stover, a widely available plant feedstock. Overall, the results insinuate phylogenetically distinct modes of brown rot and demonstrate the benefit of using non-woody substrates to probe wood degradation mechanisms.

The genome of the anaerobic fungus Orpinomyces sp. strain C1A reveals the unique evolutionary history of a remarkable plant biomass degrader

Anaerobic gut fungi represent a distinct early-branching fungal phylum (Neocallimastigomycota) and reside in the rumen, hindgut, and feces of ruminant and nonruminant herbivores. The genome of an anaerobic fungal isolate, Orpinomyces sp. strain C1A, was sequenced using a combination of Illumina and PacBio single-molecule real-time (SMRT) technologies. The large genome (100.95 Mb, 16,347 genes) displayed extremely low G+C content (17.0%), large noncoding intergenic regions (73.1%), proliferation of microsatellite repeats (4.9%), and multiple gene duplications. Comparative genomic analysis identified multiple genes and pathways that are absent in Dikarya genomes but present in early-branching fungal lineages and/or nonfungal Opisthokonta. These included genes for posttranslational fucosylation, the production of specific intramembrane proteases and extracellular protease inhibitors, the formation of a complete axoneme and intraflagellar trafficking machinery, and a near-complete focal adhesion machinery. Analysis of the lignocellulolytic machinery in the C1A genome revealed an extremely rich repertoire, with evidence of horizontal gene acquisition from multiple bacterial lineages. Experimental analysis indicated that strain C1A is a remarkable biomass degrader, capable of simultaneous saccharification and fermentation of the cellulosic and hemicellulosic fractions in multiple untreated grasses and crop residues examined, with the process significantly enhanced by mild pretreatments. This capability, acquired during its separate evolutionary trajectory in the rumen, along with its resilience and invasiveness compared to prokaryotic anaerobes, renders anaerobic fungi promising agents for consolidated bioprocessing schemes in biofuels production.

Thermoascus aurantiacus is a promising source of enzymes for biomass deconstruction under thermophilic conditions

BACKGROUND

Thermophilic fungi have attracted increased interest for their ability to secrete enzymes that deconstruct biomass at high temperatures. However, development of thermophilic fungi as enzyme producers for biomass deconstruction has not been thoroughly investigated. Comparing the enzymatic activities of thermophilic fungal strains that grow on targeted biomass feedstocks has the potential to identify promising candidates for strain development. Thielavia terrestris and Thermoascus aurantiacus were chosen for characterization based on literature precedents.

RESULTS

Thermoascus aurantiacus and Thielavia terrestris were cultivated on various biomass substrates and culture supernatants assayed for glycoside hydrolase activities. Supernatants from both cultures possessed comparable glycoside hydrolase activities when incubated with artificial biomass substrates. In contrast, saccharifications of ionic liquid pretreated switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) revealed that T. aurantiacus enzymes released more glucose than T. terrestris enzymes over a range of protein mass loadings and temperatures. Temperature-dependent saccharifications demonstrated that the T. aurantiacus proteins retained higher levels of activity compared to a commercial enzyme mixture sold by Novozymes, Cellic CTec2, at elevated temperatures. Enzymes secreted by T. aurantiacus released glucose at similar protein loadings to CTec2 on dilute acid, ammonia fiber expansion, or ionic liquid pretreated switchgrass. Proteomic analysis of the T. aurantiacus culture supernatant revealed dominant glycoside hydrolases from families 5, 7, 10, and 61, proteins that are key enzymes in commercial cocktails.

CONCLUSIONS

T. aurantiacus produces a complement of secreted proteins capable of higher levels of saccharification of pretreated switchgrass than T. terrestris enzymes. The T. aurantiacus enzymatic cocktail performs at the same level as commercially available enzymatic cocktail for biomass deconstruction, without strain development or genetic modifications. Therefore, T. aurantiacus provides an excellent platform to develop a thermophilic fungal system for enzyme production for the conversion of biomass to biofuels.

Pretreatment of oil palm frond using hot compressed water: an evaluation of compositional changes and pulp digestibility using severity factors

The influence of reaction temperature (160-200°C), residence time (45-90min), and liquid-solid ratio (8-16v/w) on oil palm frond (OPF) pre-treated with hot compressed water (HCW) was evaluated using severity factors. Effect of the process parameters studied on pulps composition and digestibility were found to be complex. The results revealed that digestibility could not be predicted merely according to composition. Severity factor was correlated with compositional changes and digestibility with good R-squared values at varied liquid-solid ratios (8-16v/w), but not with overall glucose yield. HCW pretreatment significantly improved the overall glucose yield up to 83.72% with severity of 3.31 and liquid-solid ratio of 8.0 compared to untreated raw OPF which only recorded an overall glucose yield of 30.97%. HCW is therefore an effective method for pretreatment of OPF for glucose recovery.

Thermo-mechanical extrusion pretreatment for conversion of soybean hulls to fermentable sugars

Thermo-mechanical extrusion pretreatment for lignocellulosic biomass was investigated using soybean hulls as the substrate. The enzyme cocktail used to hydrolyze pretreated soybean hulls to fermentable sugars was optimized using response surface methodology (RSM). Structural changes in substrate and sugar yields from thermo-mechanical processing were compared with two traditional pretreatment methods that utilized dilute acid (1% sulfuric acid) and alkali (1% sodium hydroxide). Extrusion processing parameters (barrel temperature, in-barrel moisture, screw speed) and processing aids (starch, ethylene glycol) were studied with respect to reducing sugar and glucose yields. The conditions resulting in the highest cellulose to glucose conversion (95%) were screw speed 350rpm, maximum barrel temperature 80°C and in-barrel moisture content 40%wb. Compared with untreated soybean hulls, glucose yield from enzymatic hydrolysis of soybean hulls increased by 69.6%, 128.7% and 132.2%, respectively, when pretreated with dilute acid, alkali and extrusion.

Investigation of the application of an enzyme-based biodegradability test method to a municipal solid waste biodrying process

This paper presents a study to evaluate the recently developed enzymatic hydrolysis test (EHT) through its repeated application to a waste treatment process. A single waste treatment facility, involving a biodrying process, has been monitored using three different methods to assess the biodegradable content of the organic waste fractions. These test methods were the anaerobic BMc, aerobic DR4 and the EHT, which is a method based on the enzymatic hydrolysis of the cellulosic content of waste materials. The input municipal solid waste (MSW) and the output solid recovered fuel (SRF) and organic fines streams were sampled over a period of nine months from a single mechanical biological treatment (MBT) facility. The EHT was applied to each stream following grinding to <10 mm and <2 mm, in order to investigate the effect of particle size on the release of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from enzyme hydrolysis. The output organic fines were found to more biodegradable than the MSW input and SRF output samples in each of the test methods, significantly (p<0.05) for the EHT and DR4 methods, on the basis of DOC released and oxygen consumed, respectively. The variation between sample replicates for the EHT was higher where sample sizes of <2 mm were analysed compared to sizes of <10 mm, and the DOC release at each phase of the EHT was observed to be higher when using particle sizes of <2 mm. Despite this, additional sample grinding from the <10 mm to a smaller particle size of <2 mm is not sufficiently beneficial to the analysis of organic waste fractions in the EHT method. Finally, it was concluded that as similar trends were observed for each test method, this trial confirms that EHT has the potential to be deployed as a practical operational biodegradability monitoring tool.

Low temperature alkali pretreatment for improving enzymatic digestibility of sweet sorghum bagasse for ethanol production

A low temperature alkali pretreatment method was proposed for improving the enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency of lignocellulosic biomass for ethanol production. The effects of the pretreatment on the composition, structure and enzymatic digestibility of sweet sorghum bagasse were investigated. The mechanisms involved in the digestibility improvement were discussed with regard to the major factors contributing to the biomass recalcitrance. The pretreatment caused slight glucan loss but significantly reduced the lignin and xylan contents of the bagasse. Changes in cellulose crystal structure occurred under certain treatment conditions. The pretreated bagasse exhibited greatly improved enzymatic digestibility, with 24-h glucan saccharification yield reaching as high as 98% using commercially available cellulase and β-glucosidase. The digestibility improvement was largely attributed to the disruption of the lignin-carbohydrate matrix. The bagasse from a brown midrib (BMR) mutant was more susceptible to the pretreatment than a non-BMR variety tested, and consequently gave higher efficiency of enzymatic hydrolysis.

Dry pretreatment of lignocellulose with extremely low steam and water usage for bioethanol production

Two rarely noticed but important parameters of the dilute sulfuric acid pretreatment of lignocellulose biomass, the feedstock filling ratio to the pretreatment reactor and the solids/liquid presoaking ratio, were extensively studied. The effects of the two parameters on the steam consumption, waste water generation, and pretreatment efficiency were investigated. At the full filling ratio and high solids/liquid presoaking ratio, this "dry" pretreatment method provided at least the following advantages: (1) the steam consumption was significantly reduced; (2) no aqueous acid containing waste water was generated; (3) high solids content of the pretreated materials were obtained and the consequent saccharification and fermentation was carried out at high solids loading easily. This method was applied to various lignocellulose feedstocks successfully and provided a practical means to produce ethanol economically feasible.

Switchgrass

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) is a warm-season grass that is native to the prairies of North America that is being developed into a biomass energy crop. It has been used in the Great Plains and Midwest USA as a forage and pasture grass for over 50 years and since the early 1990s research has been conducted on it for bioenergy because of several principal attributes. Switchgrass can be grown on marginal land that is not suitable for intensive cultivation on which it can produce high biomass yields with good management. It is a long lived perennial that has low establishment and production costs and it can harvested and handled with conventional forage equipment. There is substantial potential for genetic improvement of switchgrass for biomass energy production by increasing biomass yield and altering cell wall composition to increase liquid energy yields in biorefineries.

Aqueous extraction of sugarcane bagasse hemicellulose and production of xylose syrup

At the optimum level of severity, the aqueous extraction of sugarcane bagasse, an abundant agricultural residue, gave, depending on the degree of comminution, 60% to 89% yield of xylose, most of it in the form of a water soluble xylan. A process for producing xylose-rich syrups was conceived and tested, consisting of aqueous extraction, acid hydrolysis of the concentrated aqueous extract centrifugal clarification of the hydrolysate, and recovery of the acid by continuous ion exclusion. The cost estimate indicates operating costs on the order of $0.12 to $0.15/kg xylose, in the form of xylose-rich molasses.

Continuous culture studies of xylose-fermenting Zymomonas mobilis

The continuous cofermentation performance of xylose-fermenting Zymomonas mobilis at 30 degrees C and pH 5.5 was characterized using a pure-sugar feed solution that contained 8 g/L glucose and 40 g/L xylose. Successful chemostat start up resulted in complete utilization of glucose and greater than 85% utilization of xylose, but was only reproducibly achieved using initial dilution rates at or less than 0.04/h; once initiated, cofermentation could be maintained at dilution rates of 0.04 to 0.10/h. Whereas xylose and cell-mass concentrations increased gradually with increasing dilution rate, ethanol concentrations and ethanol yields on available sugars remained approximately constant at 20-22 g/L and 80-90% of theoretical, respectively. Volumetric and specific ethanol productivities increased linearly with increasing dilution rate, rising from approx 1.0 each (g/L/h or g/g/h) at a dilution rate of 0.04/h to approx 2.0 each (g/L/h or g/g/h) at a dilution rate of 0.10/h. Similarly, specific sugar-utilization rates increased from approx 2.0 g/g/h at dilution rate 0.04/h to approx 3.5 g/g/h at dilution rate of 0.10/h. The estimated values of 0.042 g/g for the maximum Z. mobilis cell-mass yield on substrate and 1.13 g/g/h for the minimum specific substrate utilization rate required for cellular maintenance energy are within the range of values reported in the literature. Results are also presented which suggest that long-term adaptation in continuous culture is a powerful technique for developing strains with higher tolerance to inhibitory hemicellulose hydrolyzates.

Switchgrass for bioethanol and other value-added applications: a review

Switchgrass is a promising feedstock for value-added applications due to its high productivity, potentially low requirements for agricultural inputs and positive environmental impacts. The objective of this paper is to review published research on the conversion of switchgrass into bioethanol and other value-added products. Environmental benefits associated with switchgrass include the potential for carbon sequestration, nutrient recovery from runoff, soil remediation and provision of habitats for grassland birds. Pretreatment of switchgrass is required to improve the yields of fermentable sugars. Based on the type of pretreatment, glucose yields range from 70% to 90% and xylose yields range from 70% to 100% after hydrolysis. Following pretreatment and hydrolysis, ethanol yields range from 72% to 92% of the theoretical maximum. Other value-added uses of switchgrass include gasification, bio-oil production, newsprint production and fiber reinforcement in thermoplastic composites. Future prospects for research include increased biomass yields, optimization of feedstock composition for bioenergy applications, and efficient pentose fermentation to improve ethanol yields.

Characterization of the degree of polymerization of xylooligomers produced by flowthrough hydrolysis of pure xylan and corn stover with water

Mechanisms that control xylan removal during pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass are not well understood. For example, although hemicellulose hydrolysis is virtually always assumed to follow first-order homogeneous kinetics, the increase in xylan removal with flow rate for flowthrough pretreatment systems is inconsistent with the predictions for such models, and better information is needed to understand the causes of such discrepancies. Thus, new methods were developed to follow the fate of xylooligomers with degrees of polymerization of up to 30, a range not possible before, for water-only flowthrough pretreatment of oat spelt xylan and corn stover for temperatures of 200-240 degrees C. Material balances based on the oligomer release profiles produced by batch and flowthrough operations could be closed, suggesting the methods were quite accurate. However, the results also showed that increasing the flow rate from 0 to 2 and then 25 mL/min affected the size distribution of the xylan oligomers (DP<30) released from corn stover but not from oat spelt xylan and also increased overall hemicellulose sugar solubilization. One explanation for these difference is that lignin and lignin-xylan compounds in particular play an important role in the hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass.

Studying the effects of reaction conditions on components of dairy manure and cellulose accumulation using dilute acid treatment

The objectives of this study were to statistically study the effects of reaction conditions of temperature, acid concentration, and reaction time on manure components of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and nitrogen during dilute acid treatment of dairy manure; and to further optimize the accumulation of cellulose for later enzymatic conversion to glucose. A 2(3) full factorial design was adopted to investigate the effects of the reaction conditions on each individual component and later followed by a 3-factor central composite design which was used to obtain the optimal conditions for cellulose accumulation. The results indicated that acid was the most important factor for changes of all the components. The results also showed that two other individual factors, reaction time and temperature, as well as the interactions among all three factors had significant influences on the changes. In addition, the optimal conditions for cellulose accumulation were 2.8h reaction time, 140 degrees C reaction temperature, and 1.0% acid concentration. Under these conditions cellulose content reached 31.0% while hemicellulose, lignin and nitrogen content were 3.2%, 20.8% and 2.4%, respectively.

Improving fermentation performance of recombinant Zymomonas in acetic acid-containing media

In the production of ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass, the hydrolysis of the acetylated pentosans in hemicellulose during pretreatment produces acetic acid in the prehydrolysate. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is currently investigating a simultaneous saccharification and cofermentation (SSCF) process that uses a proprietary metabolically engineered strain of Zymomonas mobilis that can coferment glucose and xylose. Acetic acid toxicity represents a major limitation to bioconversion, and cost-effective means of reducing the inhibitory effects of acetic acid represent an opportunity for significant increased productivity and reduced cost of producing fermentation fuel ethanol from biomass. In this study, the fermentation performance of recombinant Z. mobilis 39676:pZB4L, using a synthetic hardwood prehydrolysate containing 1% (w/v) yeast extract, 0.2% KH2PO4, 4% (w/v) xylose, and 0.8% (w/v) glucose, with varying amounts of acetic acid was examine. To minimize the concentration of the inhibitory undissociated form of acetic acid, the pH was controlled at 6.0. The final cell mass concentration decreased linearly with increasing level of acetic acid over the range 0-0.75% (w/v), with a 50% reduction at about 0.5% (w/v) acetic acid. The conversion efficiency was relatively unaffected, decreasing from 98 to 92%. In the absence of acetic acid, batch fermentations were complete at 24 h. In a batch fermentation with 0.75% (w/v) acetic acid, about two-thirds of the xylose was not metabolized after 48 h. In batch fermentations with 0.75% (w/v) acetic acid, increasing the initial glucose concentration did not have an enhancing effect on the rate of xylose fermentation. However, nearly complete xylose fermentation was achieved in 48h when the bioreactor was fed glucose. In the fed-batch system, the rate of glucose feeding (0.5 g/h) was designed to simulate the rate of cellulolytic digestion that had been observed in a modeled SSCF process with recombinant Zymomonas. In the absence of acetic acid, this rate of glucose feeding did not inhibit xylose utilization. It is concluded that the inhibitory effect of acetic acid on xylose utilization in the SSCF biomass-to-ethanol process will be partially ameliorated because of the simultaneous saccharification of the cellulose.

Arbinose utilization by xylose-fermenting yeasts and fungi

Various wild-type yeasts and fungi were screened to evaluate their ability to ferment L-arabinose under oxygen-limited conditions when grown in defined minimal media containing mixtures of L-arabinose, D-xylose, and D-glucose. Although all of the yeasts and some of the fungi consumed arabinose, arabinose was not fermented to ethanol by any of the strains tested. Arabitol was the only major product other than cell mass formed from L-arabinose; yeasts converted arabinose to arabitol at high yield. The inability to ferment L-arabinose appears to be a consequence of inefficient or incomplete assimilation pathways for this pentose sugar.

Relative rates of sugar utilization by an ethanologenic recombinant Escherichia coli using mixtures of glucose, mannose, and xylose

The volumetric rates of glucose (G), mannose (M), and xylose (X) utilization by recombinant Escherichia coli B (pLO1297) were compared in pH-stat batch fermentations with Luria broth containing various combinations of two of these sugars at differing mass ratios. Using single substrate media, the rates of glucose, mannose, and xylose utilization were 3.0, 0.8, and 1.5 g/L/h, respectively. With all two substrate media, hexose and pentose sugars were consumed simultaneously. At a mass ratio of 2:1 (M or X:G), the rate of glucose utilization was reduced to 1.7 and 1.2 g/L/h by mannose and xylose, respectively. In media containing glucose and xylose, the rate of xylose utilization was inhibited when the glucose component exceeded about 40% of the total sugar mass in the medium. At a mass ratio of 2M:1X, mannose did not inhibit the rate of xylose utilization. At a mass ratio of 1:2 (G or X:M), the rate of mannose utilization was unaffected by either glucose or xylose. Synthetic media containing a mixture of hexose and pentose sugars were formulated to mimic different biomass hemicellulose hydrolysates. Relative to the rate in a single substrate medium, the respective rates of glucose and xylose utilization were 70% (2.1 g/L/h) and 40% (0.6 g/L/h) in a synthetic softwood prehydrolysate (SW) medium with a total reducing sugar (TRS) content of 45.7 g/L (20 wt% glucose, 30% xylose, and 50% mannose). However, the rate of mannose utilization in the SW medium was not inhibited. The respective rates of glucose and xylose utilization were 30% (0.9 g/L/h) and > 90% (1.4 g/L/h) in a synthetic crop residue prehydrolysate (CR) medium with a TRS content of 46.9 g/L (10 wt% glucose, 73% xylose, and 17% arabinose). Based on the results of this study, we suggest that the apparent "preference" for fermentation of hexose sugars by recombinant E. coli may be owing to the decreased rate of xylose transport caused by hexose sugars. Glucose is a more potent modulator of xylose utilization than mannose, but since xylose affects the rate of glucose utilization, this study also points to the importance of the concentration of the different sugars in terms of the relative rates of utilization by recombinant E. coli.

Effects of pH and acetic acid on glucose and xylose metabolism by a genetically engineered ethanologenic Escherichia coli

Efficient utilization of the pentosan fraction of hemicellulose from lignocellulosic feedstocks offers an opportunity to increase the yield and to reduce the cost of producing fuel ethanol. The patented, genetically engineered, ethanologen Escherichia coli B (pLOI297) exhibits high-performance characteristics with respect to both yield and productivity in xylose-rich lab media. In addition to producing monomer sugar residues, thermochemical processing of biomass is known to produce substances that are inhibitory to both yeast and bacteria. During prehydrolysis, acetic acid is formed as a consequence of the deacetylation of the acetylated pentosan. Our investigations have shown that the acetic acid content of hemicellulose hydrolysates from a variety of biomass/waste materials was in the range 2-10 g/L (33-166 mM). Increasing the reducing sugar concentration by evaporation did not alter the acetic acid concentration. Acetic acid toxicity is pH dependent. By virtue of its ability to traverse the cell membrane freely, the undissociated (protonated) form of acetic acid (HAc) acts as a membrane protonophore and causes its inhibitory effect by bringing about the acidification of the cytoplasm. With recombinant E. coli B, the pH range for optimal growth with glucose and xylose was 6.4-6.8. With glucose, the pH optimum for ethanol yield and volumetric productivity was 6.5, and for xylose it was 6.0 and 6.5, respectively. However, the decrease in growth and fermentation efficiency at pH 7 is not significant. At pH 7, only 0.56% of acetic acid is undissociated, and at 10 g/L, neither the ethanol yield nor the maximum volumetric productivity, with glucose or xylose, is significantly decreased. The "uncoupling" effect of HAc is more pronounced with xylose and the potency of HAc is potentiated in a minimal salts medium. Controlling the pH at 7 provided an effective means of circumventing acetic acid toxicity without significant loss in fermentation performance of the recombinant biocatalyst.