Biomass accessibility analysis using electron tomography.
BIOTECHNOLOGY FOR BIOFUELS 2015;
8:212. [PMID:
26709354 PMCID:
PMC4691013 DOI:
10.1186/s13068-015-0395-8]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2015] [Accepted: 11/24/2015] [Indexed: 05/09/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Substrate accessibility to catalysts has been a dominant theme in theories of biomass deconstruction. However, current methods of quantifying accessibility do not elucidate mechanisms for increased accessibility due to changes in microstructure following pretreatment.
RESULTS
We introduce methods for characterization of surface accessibility based on fine-scale microstructure of the plant cell wall as revealed by 3D electron tomography. These methods comprise a general framework, enabling analysis of image-based cell wall architecture using a flexible model of accessibility. We analyze corn stover cell walls, both native and after undergoing dilute acid pretreatment with and without a steam explosion process, as well as AFEX pretreatment.
CONCLUSION
Image-based measures provide useful information about how much pretreatments are able to increase biomass surface accessibility to a wide range of catalyst sizes. We find a strong dependence on probe size when measuring surface accessibility, with a substantial decrease in biomass surface accessibility to probe sizes above 5-10 nm radius compared to smaller probes.
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