TY - JOUR

T1 - Optimising parameters for pilot scale steam explosion and continuous pressurised disc refining of Miscanthus and sugarcane bagasse for xylose and xylo-oligosaccharide release

AU - Warren-Walker, Darren

AU - Ravella, Sreenivas Rao

AU - Gallagher, Joe

AU - Winters, Ana

AU - Charlton, Adam

AU - Bryant, David N.

PY - 2024/6/3

Y1 - 2024/6/3

N2 - The first comparative pre-treatment study of Miscanthus (Mxg) and sugarcane bagasse (SCB) using steam explosion (SE) and pressurised disc refining (PDR) pretreatment to optimise xylose and xylo-oligosaccharide release is described. The current investigation aimed to 1) Develop optimised batch-wise steam explosion parameters for Mxg and SCB, 2) Scale from static batch steam explosion to dynamic continuous pressurised disc refining, 3) Identify, understand, and circumvent scale-up production hurdles.Optimised SE parameters released 82% (Mxg) and 100% (SCB) of the available xylan. Scaling to PDR, Miscanthus yielded 85% xylan, highlighting how robust scouting assessments for boundary process parameters can result in successful technical transfer. In contrast, SCB technical transfer was not straightforward, with significant differences observed between the two processes, 100% (SE) and 58% (PDR).This report underlines the importance of feedstock-specific pretreatment strategies to underpin process development, scale-up, and optimisation of carbohydrate release from biomass.

AB - The first comparative pre-treatment study of Miscanthus (Mxg) and sugarcane bagasse (SCB) using steam explosion (SE) and pressurised disc refining (PDR) pretreatment to optimise xylose and xylo-oligosaccharide release is described. The current investigation aimed to 1) Develop optimised batch-wise steam explosion parameters for Mxg and SCB, 2) Scale from static batch steam explosion to dynamic continuous pressurised disc refining, 3) Identify, understand, and circumvent scale-up production hurdles.Optimised SE parameters released 82% (Mxg) and 100% (SCB) of the available xylan. Scaling to PDR, Miscanthus yielded 85% xylan, highlighting how robust scouting assessments for boundary process parameters can result in successful technical transfer. In contrast, SCB technical transfer was not straightforward, with significant differences observed between the two processes, 100% (SE) and 58% (PDR).This report underlines the importance of feedstock-specific pretreatment strategies to underpin process development, scale-up, and optimisation of carbohydrate release from biomass.

KW - Pretreatment, scale-up, xylose extraction, C4 grasses

U2 - 10.1016/j.biortech.2024.130932

DO - 10.1016/j.biortech.2024.130932

M3 - Article

VL - 405

JO - Bioresource Technology

JF - Bioresource Technology

SN - 0960-8524

M1 - 130932

ER -