(787c) Ionic Liquid Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass – Recovery and Reuse of IL

University of Toledo and SuGanit Systems Inc. have jointly developed a novel Ionic Liquid pretreatment method for deconstructing lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks to promote rapid enzyme-catalyzed saccharification of the carbohydrates . The IL pretreatment is a facile method that works at moderate temperatures and atmospheric pressure conditions, and was successfully demonstrated on various lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks.  SuGanit Systems Inc. is scaling up this technology of sugar production from lignocellulosic biomass by ionic liquid pretreatment. A critical economic driver of the process is efficient recovery of IL from wash streams following biomass pretreatment.  We have explored the viability of electrodialysis (ED) for recovering and concentrating IL following biomass pretreatment.  It was shown that dissolved nonionic extractibles entering IL wash solutions from biomass could successfully be removed via ED. This presentation will focus on the effectiveness and economics aspects of ED for this purpose, and the important differences between ED-based separation of IL versus salt solutions.