Thread rolling: An efficient mechanical pretreatment for corn stover saccharification

Abstract

Sugar cane bagasse and corn stalks are rich in lignocellulose, which can be degraded into monosaccharides through enzymatic hydrolysis. Appropriate pretreatment methods can effectively improve the efficiency of lignocellulose enzymatic hydrolysis. To enhance the efficiency of enzymatic hydrolysis, thread rolling pretreatment as a physical pretreatment was applied in this study. The influence of raw material meshes size after pretreatment was also taken as the research target. Specific surface area analysis, Scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-rays diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) were used for characterizations. The results showed that, the total monosaccharide recovery rates of the raw materials, 20–40 mesh, 40–60 mesh, and 60–80 mesh enzymolysis substrates were 17.6%, 34.58%, 37.94%, and 50.69%, respectively. The sample after pretreatment showed a better recovery of monosaccharide than that of the raw material. Moreover, the enzymolysis substrates with a larger mesh exhibited a higher recovery of monosaccharide than that of the enzymolysis substrates with smaller meshes. This indicated that thread rolling pretreatment can effectively improve the efficiency of enzymatic hydrolysis.