Enzymatic saccharification promotion for bioenergy poplar under green liquor pretreatment by fully sulfonated polystyrene: Effect of molecular weight.

Water-soluble lignin and lignin derivatives are cited to promote the enzymatic saccharification of lignocellulose. Herein, a series of fully sulfonated polystyrene sulfonates (FSPSSs) with various molecular weights (MW) were synthesized through free radical polymerization (FRP) and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) to serve as lignin analogues to boost the enzymatic saccharification of bioenergy poplar under green liquor pretreatment. The FRP-made polymers with MW 944.5 × 103 to 123.6 × 103 g/mol increased the enzymatic hydrolysis digestibility (SED) by 13 % to 18.8 %. On contrary, the ATRP-made polymers with lower MW (3.8 × 103-12.2 × 103 g/mol) showed a weak effect with<8 % improvement in SED. This can be explained the adsorption capacity and the conformation of cellulase-FSPSS complexes, which respond to the reducing nonproductive adsorption correlated to their MWs, due to the strong dependence of molecular conformation on the chain length of strong polyelectrolytes.

Liu T ，Wang P ，Tian J ，Guo J ，Zhu W ，Seidi F ，Jin Y ，Xiao H ，Song J ... -  《-》

Polystyrene sulfonate is effective for enhancing biomass enzymatic saccharification under green liquor pretreatment in bioenergy poplar.

Water-soluble lignin (particularly lignosulfonate, LS) has been well documented for its significance on enzymatic saccharification of lignocellulose, though the promotion mechanism has not been fully understood. Much attention has been paid to natural lignin or its derivatives. The disadvantage of using natural lignin-based polymers as promoting agents lies in the difficulty in tailor-incorporating functional groups due to their complex 3D structures. To further improve our understanding on the promotion mechanism of water-soluble lignin in the bioconversion of lignocellulose and to pursue better alternatives with different skeleton structures other than natural lignin, herein we reported a synthetic soluble linear aromatic polymer, sodium polystyrene sulfonate (PSS), to mimic LS for enhancing the efficiency of enzymatic saccharification. The role of PSS in enzymatic saccharification of pure cellulose and green liquor-pretreated poplar (GL-P) was explored by analyzing substrate enzymatic digestibility (SED) under different addition dosages and various pH media, along with LS for comparison. At the cellulase loading of 13.3 FPU/g-glucan, the glucose yield of GL-P increased from 53% for the control to 81.5% with PSS addition of 0.1 g/g-substrate. It outperformed LS with the addition of 0.2 g/g-substrate by 6.3%. In the pH range from 4.5 to 6, PSS showed a positive effect on lignocellulose saccharification with the optimum pH at 4.8, where the most pronounced SED of GL-P was achieved. The underlying mechanism was unveiled by measuring zeta potential and using Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) and Multi-parametric Surface Plasmon Resonance (MP-SPR). The results confirmed that the complexes of cellulase and PSS were conjugated and the negatively supercharged complexes reduced non-productive binding effectively along with the improved saccharification efficiency. The thickness of PSS required to block the binding sites of cellulase film was less than half of that of LS, and the PSS adlayer on cellulase film is also more hydrated and with a much lower shear modulus than LS adlayer. PSS as LS analogue is effective for enhancing the biomass enzymatic saccharification of GL-pretreated poplar. PSS exhibited a severer inhibition on the enzymatic saccharification of pure cellulose, while a more positive effect on bioconversion of lignocellulose (GL-P) than LS. In addition, a much lower dosage is required by PSS. The dynamic enzymatic hydrolysis indicated PSS could prolong the processive activity of cellulase. The valid data stemmed from QCM and SPR expressed that PSS bound to cellulases and the as-formed complexes reduced the non-productive adsorption of cellulase onto substrate lignin more efficiently than LS due to its flexible skeleton and highly hydrated structure. Therefore, PSS is a promising alternative promoting agent for lignocellulose saccharification. From another perspective, the synthetic lignin mimics with controllable structures enable us to reach an in-depth understanding of the promotion mechanism of soluble lignins on enzymatic saccharification.

Liu T ，Wang P ，Tian J ，Guo J ，Zhu W ，Jin Y ，Xiao H ，Song J ... -  《-》

Reducing non-productive adsorption of cellulase and enhancing enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocelluloses by noncovalent modification of lignin with lignosulfonate.

Four fractions of one commercial sodium lignosulfonate (SXP) with different molecular weight (MW) and anionic polymers were studied to reduce non-productive adsorption of cellulase on bound lignin in a lignocellulosic substrate. SXP with higher MW had stronger blocking effect on non-productive adsorption of a commercial Trichoderma reesi cellulase cocktail (CTec2) on lignin measured by quartz crystal microgravimetry with dissipation monitoring. Linear anionic aromatic polymers have strong blocking effect, but they would also reduce CTec2 adsorption on cellulose to decrease the enzymatic activity. The copolymer of lignin and polyethylene glycol (AL-PEG1000) has strong enhancement in enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocelluloses, because it not only improves the cellulase activity to cellulose, but also blocks the non-productive cellulase adsorption on lignin. Apart from improving the cellulase activity to cellulose, the enhancements of enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulose by adding AL-PEG1000 and SXPs are the result of the decreased cellulase non-productive adsorption on lignin.

Lou H ，Wang M ，Lai H ，Lin X ，Zhou M ，Yang D ，Qiu X ... -  《-》

Influence of lignin addition on the enzymatic digestibility of pretreated lignocellulosic biomasses.

The presence of lignin in lignocellulosic biomass is correlated with its enzymatic digestibility. Their correlation and mechanism have been investigated widely but have not been elucidated clearly. In this study, hydrophilic sulfonated lignin and hydrophobic kraft lignin were introduced into the enzymatic hydrolysis process to investigate their effects on the enzymatic digestibility of different pretreated lignocellulose. The influence of lignin addition on the enzymatic digestibility varied with both introduced lignin type and the pretreatment methods of substrates. Slight enhancement of enzymatic hydrolysis was observed for all substrates by adding kraft lignin. The addition of sulfonated lignin could effectively improve the enzymatic digestibility of green liquor and acidic bisulfite pretreated materials, but had little effect on sulfite-formaldehyde pretreated samples. The enzymatic digestibility of green liquor pretreated masson pine increased from 42% without lignin addition to 75% with 0.3g/g-substrate sulfonated lignin addition.

Wang W ，Zhu Y ，Du J ，Yang Y ，Jin Y ... -  《-》

Lignosulfonate-mediated cellulase adsorption: enhanced enzymatic saccharification of lignocellulose through weakening nonproductive binding to lignin.

Wang Z ，Zhu J ，Fu Y ，Qin M ，Shao Z ，Jiang J ，Yang F ... -  《Biotechnology for Biofuels》