Polysaccharides Release in a Laboratory-Scale Batch Hydrothermal Pretreatment of Wheat Straw under Rigorous Isothermal Operation

Abstract

Hydrothermal pretreatment (HP) is an eco-friendly process for deconstructing lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) that plays a key role in ensuring the profitability of producing biofuels or bioproducts in a biorefinery. At the laboratory scale, HP is usually carried out under non-isothermal regimes with poor temperature control. In contrast, HP is usually carried out under isothermal conditions at the commercial scale. Consequently, significant discrepancies in the values of polysaccharide releases are found in the literature. Therefore, laboratory-scale HP data are not trustworthy if scale-up or retrofitting of HP at larger scales is required. This contribution presents the results of laboratory-scale batch HP for wheat straw in terms of xylan and glucan release that were obtained with rigorous temperature control under isothermal conditions during the reaction stage. The heating and cooling stages were carried out with fast rates (43 and −40 °C/min, respectively), minimizing non-isothermal reaction periods. Therefore, the polysaccharide release results can be associated exclusively with the isothermic reaction stage and can be considered as a reliable source of information for HP at commercial scales. The highest amount of xylan release was 4.8 g/L or 43% obtained at 180 °C and 20 min, while the glucan release exhibited a maximum of 1.2 g/L or 5.5%. at 160 °C/180 °C and 30 min.