Thesis P.Murciano Martinez 29 February 2016
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Alkaline pretreatments of lignin-rich by-products and their implications for enzymatic degradation Patricia Murciano Martínez Thesis committee Promotor Prof. Dr H. Gruppen Professor of Food Chemistry Wagenigen University Co-promotor Dr M. A. Kabel Assistant Professor, Laboratory of Food Chemistry Wageningen University Other members Prof. Dr G. Zeeman, Wageningen University Prof. Dr C. Felby, University of Copenhagen Dr R. J. A. Gosselink, Wageningen UR Food & Biobased Research Dr J. Wery, Corbion-Purac Biochem, Gorinchem This research was conducted under the auspices of the Graduate School VLAG (Advanced studies in Food Technology, Agrobiotechnology, Nutrition and Health Sciences). Alkaline pretreatments of lignin-rich by-products and their implications for enzymatic degradation Patricia Murciano Martínez Thesis Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of doctor at Wageningen University by the authority of the Rector Magnificus Prof. Dr A.P.J. Mol, in the presence of the Thesis Committee appointed by the Academic Board to be defended in public on Friday 1 April 2016 at 4 p.m. in the Aula. Patricia Murciano Martínez Alkaline pretreatments of lignin-rich by-products and their implications for enzymatic degradation 162 pages. PhD thesis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, NL (2016) With references, with summary in English ISBN: 978-94-6257-662-9 Table of contents Chapter 1 General introduction 1 Chapter 2 Delignification outperforms alkaline extraction as 25 pretreatment for enzymatic fingerprinting of xylan from oil palm empty fruit bunch Chapter 3 Importance of acid or alkali concentration on the 43 removal of xylan and lignin for enzymatic cellulose hydrolysis Chapter 4 Alkaline pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of 65 sugar cane bagasse: An empirical model based on experimental data Chapter 5 Deconstruction of lignin linked p-coumarates, 83 ferulates and xylan by NaOH enhances the enzymatic conversion of glucan Chapter 6 The two Rasamsonia emersonii α-glucuronidases, 107 Re GH67 and Re GH115, show a different mode-of- action towards glucuronoxylan and glucuronoxylo- oligosaccharides Chapter 7 General discussion 125 Summary 145 Chapter 1 General Introduction THE INCREASING INTEREST IN PLANT BIOMASS BASED BIOFUELS AND CHEMICALS arouses mainly from the increased awareness of a possible finiteness of fuels. The current main challenge to produce such biofuels and biochemicals is economic efficiency, but also knowledge concerning type and effectiveness of both thermally assisted chemical and enzymatic treatments, needed to generate fermentable sugars, is lacking. The subject of this thesis is to gain understanding of the effect of both sulphuric acid and NaOH catalysed pretreatments of sugar cane bagasse and oil palm empty fruit bunches on subsequent enzymatic saccharification, with a focus on the NaOH catalysed pretreatments. The fate of the main polymers present, lignin, cellulose and xylan, was studied and also single-activity xylan degrading enzymes, all from Rasamsonia emersonii , were studied for their mode-of-action. CHAPTER 1 1.1 Current challenges for plant biomass conversion into monosaccharides Agricultural by-products (e.g. sugar cane bagasse) useable for the production of biochemicals and biofuels are mainly composed of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Agricultural by-products are often referred to as lignocellulose. The conversion process of such lignocellulose into monosaccharides for the production of biochemicals or biofuels can be achieved by three major steps (Figure 1): pretreatment, enzymatic saccharification and sugar fermentation. Figure 1. Scheme of a potential second generation biorefinery plant, to convert lignocellulose into products (adapted from Hayes, 2009). Pretreatment technologies have been developed in order to increase enzyme accessibility to the (hemi-)cellulose (Mosier et al., 2005). The main currently studied pretreatments are shown in Figure 1, and the most used, alkaline, acid and oxidative, will be further described later on. After pretreatment, the lignocellulose is generally separated and the (hemi-)cellulose fraction is subjected to enzymatic saccharification. The residual lignin fraction is normally converted into energy or fuels. The valorization of lignin is beyond the scope of this thesis and it will not be further discussed. The main technical challenges of each process are: i) finding the optimal pretreatment severity to open up the compact lignocellulosic cell wall architecture with minimal production of fermentation inhibitors (Palmqvist & Hahn-Hägerdal, [2] General introduction 2000), ii) finding the optimal combination of enzyme activities for the complete degradation of the lignocellulose cell walls, and iii) to match process conditions, like pH and temperature, for co-saccharification and fermentation (Olofsson et al., 2008). Table 1. Typical compositional data values based on dry matter of various grass type feedstocks. Content a Empty Barley Sugarcane Corn Wheat Miscanthus Switch fruit straw d bagasse d stover e straw f grass g grass h bunch d Cellulose 35 37 26 30 31 31 39 Hemicellulose (total) 33 26 27 26 27 30 37 Arabinose 3 2 2 2.7 3 n.s. i 4 Xylose 22 22 18 19 22 n.s. 30 Galactose 1 0 1 1 1 n.s. 2 Mannose+Rhamnose 4 0 1 1.1 1 n.s. 1 Uronic acids 3 1 5 2.2 2 n.s. n.s. Lignin 24 28 33 29 25 11 25 Acetic acid 2 1 3 2.4 1.7 n.s. n.s. Protein b 2 1 3 4.2 n.s. n.s. n.s. Ash content 1 5 5 n.s. n.s. 2.8 2 Degree of substitution c Ara/Xyl 13 8 13 14 14 n.s. n.s. GlcA/Xyl 8 5 18 8 7 n.s. n.s. Ac/Xyl 17 7 27 34 32 n.s. n.s. a% (w/w) based on dry matter eVan Eylen et al., 2011 b%Nx6.25 f Jurak et al., 2015; Kabel et al., 2007 cNumber of substituent residues per 100 gHodgson et al., 2011; Si et al., 2015 xylosyl residues. Ara=arabinose, Xyl=xylose, hYan et al., 2010 GlcA=glucuronic acid, Ac=acetyl ester in.s.=not specified dMurciano Martínez et al., 2015 1.2 Lignocellulosic feedstocks and their cell wall architecture Lignocellulosic by-products are very abundant worldwide, which makes them easily accessible at industrial amounts (Reddy & Yang, 2005). [3] CHAPTER 1 Composition of grasses as agricultural lignocellulosic by-products The three main components of many agricultural lignocellulosic by-products are cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. The amount in which each component is present in the feedstock varies depending on the family, species and part of the plant of which the by-product originate from (Iqbal et al., 2013). In Table 1 the composition of seven agricultural by-products is shown. The contents of the main three polymers composing the cell wall, are quite similar among the seven grasses in the table; between 26-39% for cellulose, 26-37% for hemicellulose and 11-33% for lignin. The main differences are found when looking at the detailed carbohydrate composition of each by-product, although also the compositions are largely the same. Differences in xylan structures can be seen (Table 1), but these will be discussed further on in the text. Plant cell wall architecture The composition of lignocellulose shown in Table 1 indicates the amounts of the various components present. In the plant cell wall, these components are present in a complex network, in which cross-linked polysaccharides form a network with lignin and, to a minor extent, with cell wall proteins. The plant cell wall is constituted by the middle lamella, primary cell wall, secondary cell wall and plasma membrane, of which a model is shown in Figure 2. Primary cell walls are formed during early cell growth and are normally lignified to a low extent. Secondary cell walls are deposited when cell growth has ceased and they are often highly lignified (Figure 2). Lignocellulosic agricultural by-products, and their corresponding plant materials, are mainly composed of secondary cell walls. So, they are generally comprised of long cellulose microfibrils interconnected by hemicelluloses (Ebringerová, Hromádková & Heinze, 2005). Additional polymers, such as lignin, fill the spaces in structures (Cosgrove, 2005). Cellulose Cellulose is an unbranched 1,4-linked β-D-glucan. Many parallel glucan chains form a crystalline microfibril that is mechanically strong and highly resistant to enzymatic attack. These long, crystalline microfibres are 3 to 5 nm wide. In growing cells, they are aligned with each other, which gives further structural support to the cell wall (Cosgrove, 2005). [4] General introduction Figure 2. Plant cell wall model of grasses (adapted from Achyuthan et al., 2010). Hemicellulose - xylan Hemicellulose is a heterogeneous group of polysaccharides closely associated with cellulose in the plant cell walls (Figure 2). Depending on their origin hemicelluloses are characterized by having β-(1→4)-linked backbones of glucosyl, mannosyl or xylosyl residues (Scheller & Ulvskov, 2010). Also other carbohydrates can be part of the hemicellulose structure as substituents, such as α-L-arabinosyl, β-D- glucosyl, α-D-galactosyl, α-D-glucuronic, α-D-4-O-methylglucuronic acid residues. The agricultural by-products studied in this thesis, sugar cane bagasse, oil palm empty fruit bunch and barley straw, all belong to the grass type or gramineae family. In these grasses, the major hemicellulosic population is composed of xylans, which can represent, as seen from Table 1 based on the xylosyl residues content, 18 to 30% of the dry matter biomass (Gírio et al., 2010). But, in grasses and cereals, xylans can account up to 50% of the dry matter (Ebringerová et al., 2005). Xylans are considered as the second abundant polysaccharide in plants next to cellulose (Ebringerová & Heinze, 2000). The oldest plants, as green algae and red seaweeds, are rich in homoxylans (β-1→3, β-1→4) (Ebringerová et al., 2005). However, homoxylans are rarely present in higher plants. Apparently, higher plants developed a more complex heteroxylan structure increasing the resistance to [5] CHAPTER 1 enzymatic attack.