Projects per year
Abstract
A novel lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment reactor has been designed and tested to investigate pretreatment efficacy of miscanthus grass. The reactor was designed to optimize the transfer of highly oxidative species produced by dielectric barrier discharge plasma to the liquid phase immediately after generation, by arranging close proximity of the plasma to the gas-liquid interface of microbubbles. The reactor produced a range of reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species, and the rate of production depended on the power source duty cycle and the temperature of the plasma. Ozone and other oxidative species were dispersed efficiently using energy efficient microbubbles produced by fluidic oscillations. A 5% (w/w) miscanthus suspension pretreated for 3 h at 10% duty cycle yielded 0.5% acid soluble lignin release and 26% sugar release post hydrolysis with accelerated pretreatment toward the latter stages of the treatment demonstrating the potential of this approach as an alternative pretreatment method.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 3803-3816 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | AIChE Journal |
Volume | 64 |
Issue number | 11 |
Early online date | 7 Sept 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 7 Sept 2018 |
Funding
The authors would like to thank Plants to Products BBSRC NIBB for funding this project (POC-HD_RD0300 C and BB/L013819/1). HB would like to acknowledge Micropore technology Ltd. for providing nickel membranes and Perlemax Ltd. for advice and support on plasma reactors. AW would like to acknowledge school of AACME, Loughborough University and EPSRC (EP/M507908/1) for PhD studentship. The authors are grateful to Tony Eyre for producing the design drawings as well as Mark Barron and Steve Bowler for fabrication of the reactor. Helpful discussions with Professor Richard Holdich were appreciated. The authors would also like to acknowledge the use of the facilities and the technical assistance of Keith Yendall from the Loughborough Materials and Characterisation Centre (LMCC) of Loughborough University for the SEM analyses.
Keywords
- biomass
- DBD plasma
- microbubbles
- miscanthus
- OH radicals
- ozone
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biotechnology
- Environmental Engineering
- General Chemical Engineering
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Dielectric barrier discharge plasma microbubble reactor for pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 2 Finished
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A Network of Integrated Technologies: Plants to Products
Leak, D. (PI)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
10/03/14 → 9/03/19
Project: Research council
Equipment
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SEM cryo preparation system
Material and Chemical Characterisation (MC2)Facility/equipment: Equipment