(513g) Water Retention Value As a Characterization Approach for Predictive Modeling of Corn Stover Deconstruction

Chemical and physical heterogeneity in herbaceous biomass feedstocks due to substantial differences in plant tissue types can contribute significant challenges to handling, preprocessing, and conversion in biorefining processes. A second, related challenge is quantifying this heterogeneity within feedstocks as it relates to processing in a biorefinery. Water sorption properties vary significantly with plant tissue and particle properties. In this work, we will apply several techniques for quantifying water-biomass interactions in combination with other characterization approaches for developing predictive models. These models will predict relative abundance of anatomical fractions and response to processing by pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of air-classified corn stover. One technique, water retention value (WRV) assay, is employed as a tool for screening biomass response to pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis in combination with other characterization approaches. We have further developed this assay to increase response sensitivity and identify the operating limits, while the impact of particle size, centrifugation speed and filter loading on WRV were explored.