Effects and Mechanism
of Metal Chloride Salts on Pretreatment
and Enzymatic Digestibility of Corn Stover
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Abstract
The effects of three metal chlorides including FeCl<sub>3</sub>, CuCl<sub>2</sub>, and AlCl<sub>3</sub> on corn stover biomass
pretreatment
and enzymatic hydrolysis were studied under lower severity conditions
(reaction temperature of 150–160 °C, salt concentration
of 0.075–0.125M, and reaction time of 10 min). The results
were compared with dilute sulfuric acid pretreatment at the same conditions.
The maximum monomeric xylose yields were observed to be 93 and 94
wt % when CuCl<sub>2</sub> and FeCl<sub>3</sub> were used in the pretreatment
at 160 °C for 10 min at 0.125 M concentrations, which were higher
than the sulfuric acid pretreatment yields at the same reaction conditions.
However, monomeric xylose yield for corn stover pretreated with AlCl<sub>3</sub> was observed to be 8 wt % at the same condition. This could
be explained by isomerization of xylose to xylulose and subsequent
dehydration into furfural. However, enzymatic digestibility yields
for the three metal chloride pretreated samples at 160 °C were
greater than 92 wt % . These yields were higher than sulfuric acid
pretreated samples at the same reaction conditions. The overall formation
of fermentation inhibitor products for samples pretreated with CuCl<sub>2</sub> and FeCl<sub>3</sub> was observed to be similar to the control
samples (pretreated with sulfuric acid at the same conditions)
