(575b) Towards Co-Production of Composite Materials and Bioenergy: Determining Effects of Enzymatic Saccharification On the Crystallinity, Reactivity, and Porosity of Woody Biomass

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of different pretreatments and enzymatic saccharification levels on the crystallinity, reactivity, and porosity of woody biomass.  Aspen wood flour was pre-treated with three different pretreatment agents, i.e., dilute acid, sodium hydroxide and peracetic acid, followed by different levels of enzymatic saccharification.  The functional groups of solid residuals were analyzed using hydroxyl numbers to examine evidence of internal structural and chemical changes of the samples after each treatment in terms of hydroxyl group availability.  The porosity and crystallinity of the solid residuals were evaluated using, respectively, nitrogen adsorption method (BET) and X-ray diffraction.  The cell wall surface area, pore size, and pore volume were determined from the BET method to discern the accessibility of the pre-treated substrates to enzymatic hydrolysis and also of the resulted saccharification residues to value-adding processing. X-ray diffractograms were evaluated to observe changes in crystallinity index, percent crystallinity, and cellulose crystallite size of samples upon pretreatments and enzymatic hydrolysis. Discussions will be made of the implications of these changes to the properties of composite co-products potentially produced from saccharification residues.