Pretreatment Step (pretreatment + step)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Pretreatment of barley husk for bioethanol production

JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY & BIOTECHNOLOGY, Issue 1 2005
Beatriz Palmarola-Adrados
Abstract This paper reports on the optimization of steam pretreatment of barley husk for high pentose and hexose recovery in the subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis step, as well as high ethanol yield, following simultaneous saccharification and fermentation. The parameters optimized in the steam pretreatment step were residence time (5,15 min), temperature (190,215 °C), and concentration of the acid catalyst (0 or 0.5% H2SO4). A microwave oven was employed for screening of the optimal conditions to obtain the highest sugar yield following combined pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis. The final optimization of the pretreatment prior to enzymatic hydrolysis was performed on a larger scale, in a steam pretreatment unit. Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation was carried out following steam pretreatment on 5 and 10% dry matter steam-pretreated slurries. Fermentability tests were performed to determine the effect of by-products (ie furfural and 5-hydroxymethyl furfural) in the bioconversion of glucose to ethanol by baker's yeast. The maximum glucose yield, 88% of the theoretical, was obtained following steam pretreatment with 0.5% H2SO4 at 200 °C for 10 min. Under these conditions, a sugar to ethanol conversion of 81% was attained in simultaneous saccharification and fermentation. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry [source]


Deposition of SiO, -Like Thin Films from a Mixture of HMDSO and Oxygen by Low Pressure and DBD Discharges to Improve the Corrosion Behaviour of Steel

PLASMA PROCESSES AND POLYMERS, Issue S1 2007
Camille Petit-Etienne
Abstract Hexamethyldisiloxane was used to deposit silicon dioxide thin films using a low frequency plasma reactor at low pressure as well as a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) at atmospheric pressure. FT-IR, XPS, EIS, SEM and ellipsometry were used to analyse the samples. The results show that, at low pressure, the deposited films which are smooth, continuous and dense present a polymer-like structure. By carrying out the film deposition after an oxygen plasma pretreatment step, a further improvement in the protective properties is achieved, which is observed in the case of SiO, coatings with 13.56 MHz RF generators.1 At atmospheric pressure, the deposited films present an inorganic character deposited in open air and a polymer-like one deposited under a controlled nitrogen atmosphere in our DBD reactor. The latter also allows continuous films which present the best anti-corrosive properties (which have been studied for the first time for anti-corrosive properties) when they contain some carbon incorporated. [source]


Enhancement of cellulose saccharification kinetics using an ionic liquid pretreatment step

BIOTECHNOLOGY & BIOENGINEERING, Issue 5 2006
Anantharam P. Dadi
Abstract Hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose in aqueous media catalyzed by the cellulase enzyme system suffers from slow reaction rates due in large part to the highly crystalline structure of cellulose and inaccessibility of enzyme adsorption sites. In this study, an attempt was made to disrupt the cellulose structure using the ionic liquid (IL), 1- n -butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride, in a cellulose regeneration strategy which accelerated the subsequent hydrolysis reaction. ILs are a new class of non-volatile solvents that exhibit unique solvating properties. They can be tuned to dissolve a wide variety of compounds including cellulose. Because of their extremely low volatility, ILs are expected to have minimal environmental impact on air quality compared to most other volatile solvent systems. The initial enzymatic hydrolysis rates were approximately 50-fold higher for regenerated cellulose as compared to untreated cellulose (Avicel PH-101) as measured by a soluble reducing sugar assay. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


Improved Methods for Prepurification and Detection of Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B from Cell-Free Culture Filtrate

BIOTECHNOLOGY PROGRESS, Issue 4 2005
Maria Dainiak
An improved ELISA method for the detection of Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B (SEB) in protein A preparations is presented. Fab fragments were obtained by digestion with papain of anti-SEB IgG bound to SEB immobilized on Sepharose 4B. Anti-SEB and peroxidase-labeled Fab fragments from secondary antibodies were successfully used in a modified ELISA of SEB in protein A preparations. SEB-Sepharose was used repeatedly for the production of anti-SEB Fab fragments by papain digestion without loss of affinity. In addition, for the purification of SEB from crude culture filtrates, an initial step utilizing a combined heat and pH treatment for the removal of significant amounts of contaminating proteins without losses of toxin activity is presented. This pretreatment step yielded positive effects in further downstream processing considering both shortened time and an increase in total recovery. [source]


Recovery of Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) from Coagulated Ralstoniaeutropha Using a Chemical Digestion Method

BIOTECHNOLOGY PROGRESS, Issue 4 2000
Hee Wook Ryu
For economic recovery of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) from culture broths of Ralstonia eutropha containing PHB, Al-based and Fe-based coagulants were used in the pretreatment step. The coagulated cells were then separated by centrifugation, and PHB was extracted by chemical digestion with a sodium hypochlorite/chloroform dispersion solution. The practical upper limits of dosage were found to be 1,500 mg-Al/L and 1,000 mg-Fe/L, respectively, for Al- and Fe-based coagulants. When the harvested cells were treated with a 50% sodium hypochlorite/chloroform dispersion solution, PHB recovery and purity were 90,94% and 98,99%, respectively. The influence of the use of coagulants on the PHB recovery process was found to be insignificant. Despite the residual Al and Fe in the recovered PHB (less than 450 mg-Al/kg-PHB and 750 mg-Fe/kg-PHB, respectively), no detectable amounts of Al and Fe were leached from films made of the recovered PHB under acidic conditions. The use of Fe-based coagulants is less recommended because the Fe impurity can cause an unwanted colorization problem in the final product. [source]