Effect of sodium hydroxide pretreatment at low temperature on chemical composition and enzymatic hydrolysis of spruce

The availability of fermentable sugars is a limiting factor for large-scale production of biological products such as bioethanol. Therefore, processes to produce sugars are being developed from lignocellulosic materials by enzymatic hydrolysis. However, the cellulose fraction are not readily accessible for the hydrolyzing enzymes and an efficient hydrolysis requires pretreatment. Several processes have been investigated for this pretreatment. Pretreatment of lignocelluloses with NaOH is among the promissing methods. In the present work, the effect of NaOH pretreatment at low temperature on chemical composition and subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis of spruce was investigated. A native spruce specie obtained from the forest around Borås city in Sweden was used in an the experiments. This wood was analyzed for carbohydrate and lignin fractions according to NREL methods. The wood was chemically pretreated using 7 % (w/w) sodium hydroxide solution with 5 % (w/v) solid content at 0 °C for 0.5, 1, 2 and 3 h. Commercial enzymes, cellulase (Celluclast 1.5 L, Novozyme, Denmark) and β-glucosidase (Novozyme 188, Novozyme, Denmark) were used in the enzymatic hydrolysis with activities of 30 FPU and 50 IU per gram of wood, respectively. The pretreatments changed the material composition. It was a very low loss of carbohydrate, about 98 % recovery, suggesting no significant carbohydrate hydrolysis. Xylans were the most affected by the pretreatments. The largest xylan removal was almost 50 %, using sodium hydroxide solution for 3 h. The profile of released sugars were also analyzed and compared. An improvement of enzymatic hydrolysis yield was observed as a result of the applied pretreatments, near 40 % glucose yield could be achieved.