• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.292-296
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• 2011

Liberation of fermentable sugars from lignocellulosic biomass is one of the key challenges in production of cellulosic ethanol. Aqueous ammonia cleaves ether and ester bonds in lignin carbohydrate complexes. It is an effective swelling reagent for lignocellulosic biomass. The aqueous ammonia pretreatment selectively reduces the lignin content of biomass. However, at high temperatures, this process solubilizes more than 50% of the hemicellulose in the biomass. Here we conducted a SAA(Soaking in Aqueous Ammonia) process by moderate reaction temperatures at atmospheric pressure using various lignocellulosicbiomass. The optimum condition of this process was 15 wt% of aqueous ammonia at 50 of reaction time during 72 hr. The delignification was up to 60% basis on initial biomass and the enzymatic digestibility was 60-90% for agricultural biomass, respectively.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.253-253
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• 2010

Rice straw was pretreated with aqueous ammonia in order to enhance enzyme digestibility. Soaking in ammonia aqueous (SAA) was conducted with 15% ammonia, at $60^{\circ}C$. for 24 h. Optimization of both saccharification conditions and enzyme loading of SAA rice straw was carried out. Especially enzyme loading test was performed using statistical method. Moreover proton beam irradiation (PBI) was also performed to overcome the problem which inhibit the enzyme digestibility at 1-25 kGy doses with 45 MeV of beam energy. Optimal condition for enzymatic saccharification was follows; pH 4.8, $50^{\circ}C$, 60 FPU of enzyme activity, 1:4 ratio of celluase and ${\beta}$-glucosidase. Also, optimal doses of PBI on rice straw and SAA-treated rice straw for efficient sugar recovery were found to be 3 kGy, respectively. When saccharification was performed with optimal condition, glucose conversion yield was 89% of theocratical maximum in 48 h, and 3 kGy of PBI was applied to SAA-treated rice straw, approximately 90% of the theoretical glucose yield was obtained in 12 h. The results of X-ray diffractometry (XRD) support the effect of both SAA and PBI on sugar recovery, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images unveiled the physical change of the rice straw surface since rugged rice straw surface was observed.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.682-689
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• 2015

A two-step process was investigated for pretreatment and fractionation of rice straw. The two-step fractionation process involves first, soaking rice straw in aqueous ammonia (SAA) in a batch reactor to recover lignin-rich hydrolysate. This is followed by a second-step treatment in a fixed-bed flow-through column reactor to recover xylo-oligomer-rich hydrolysate. The remaining glucan-rich solid cake is then subjected to an enzymatic process. In the first variant, SAA treatment in the first step dissolves lignin at moderate temperature (60 and $80^{\circ}C$), while in the second step, hot-water treatment is used for xylan removal at higher temperatures ($150{\sim}210^{\circ}C$). Under optimal conditions ($190^{\circ}C$ reaction temperature, 30 min reaction time, 5.0 ml/min flow rate, and 2.3 MPa reaction pressure), the SAA-hot-water fractionation removed 79.2% of the lignin and 63.4% of the xylan. In the second variant, SAA was followed by treatment with dilute sulfuric acid. With this process, optimal treatment conditions for effective fractionation of xylo-oligomer were found to be $80^{\circ}C$, 12 h reaction time, solid-to-liquid ratio of 1:12 in the first step; and 5.0 ml $H_2SO_4/min$, $170^{\circ}C$, and 2.3 MPa in the second step. After this two-step fractionation process, 85.4% lignin removal and 78.9% xylan removal (26.8% xylan recovery) were achieved. Use of the optimized second variant of the two-step fractionation process (SAA and $H_2SO_4$) resulted in enhanced enzymatic digestibility of the treated solid (99% glucan digestibility) with 15 FPU (filter paper unit) of CTec2 (cellulase)/g-glucan of enzyme loading, which was higher than 92% in the two-step fractionation process (SAA and hot-water).

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2014

This is to study the effects of various pretreatment methods of agricultural residue, corn stover, and to compare the feature and pros and cons of each method including dilute sulfuric acid (DSA), soaking in aqueous ammonia (SAA), and ammonia recycle percolation (ARP). In order to convert corn stover to ethanol, various pretreatments followed by simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation (SSCF) were tested and evaluated in terms of ethanol yield. With 3%, w/w of glucan loading using ARP-, DSA-, and SAA-treated solids, SSCFs using recombinant E. coli strain (ATCC$^{(R)}$ 55124) with commercial enzymes (15 FPU of Spezyme CP/g-glucan and 30 CBU/g-glucan enzyme loading) were tested. In the SSCF tests, 87, 90, and 78% of theoretical maximum ethanol yield were observed using ARP-, DSA-, and SAA-treated solids, respectively, which were 69, 58, and 74% on the basis of total carbohydrates (glucan + xylan) in the untreated corn stover. Ethanol yield of SAA-treated solid was higher than those of ARP- and DSA-treated solids. In addition, SSCF test using treated solids plus pretreated hydrolysate indicated that the DSA-treated hydrolysate showed the strongest inhibition effect on the KO11 strain, whereas the ARP-treated hydrolysate was found to have the second strongest inhibition effect. Bioconversion scheme using SAA pretreatment and SSCF can make the downstream process simple, which is suggested to produce ethanol economically because utilization of hemicellulose in the hydrolysate is not necessary.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.470-474
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• 2011

Rice straw is the main grain straw and is produced in large quantities every year in Korea. Pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass using soaking process was carried out mild conditions at atmospheric pressure and temperature of $60^{\circ}C$. We found enzymatic hydrolysis condition of pretreated biomass. In case of a rice straw, compared with previous lignocellulosic biomass, we found that hydrolysis time was a shorter than others. Hydrolysis of SAA-treated rice straw has shown conversion rate was higher at $50^{\circ}C$. Hydrolysis was ended between 40~48 hour. Glucose conversion rate was higher when enzyme loading is 65 FPU/ml and 32 CbU/ml. When substrate concentration was 5%(w/v), it was that conversion rate was 83.8% after hydrolysis for 72 hr. In simultaneous saccharification and fermentation(SSF) experiment about SAA-treated rice straw, ethanol productive yield was highest from $40^{\circ}C$. The yield of that time was 33.05% from 48 hour.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.430-435
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• 2014

Physical and chemical barriers, caused by the close association of the main components of cellulosic biomass, hinder the hydrolysis of cellulose to fermentable sugars. Since the main goal of pretreatment is to increase the enzyme accessibility improving digestibility of cellulose, development of an effective pretreatment process has been considered to be important. In this study, SAA (Soaking in Aqueous Ammonia) was chosen as pretreatment because this is the simple and low-cost method. Rice straw of which the production is outstandingly high in domestic agriculture residues in Korea was chosen as raw material. SSA pretreatment with various reaction time of 3 h to 72 h was tested. The enzymatic hydrolysis and SSF (Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation) were performed at three different temperature (30, 40 and $50^{\circ}C$) to investigate performance of SSF upon various pretreatment conditions. As a result, this SAA treated-rice straw was found to have great potential for effective enzymatic hydrolysis and SSF with lower enzyme dosage at lower temperature ($30^{\circ}C$) than its conventional SSF. In SAA addition, SAA reduced fermentation time to 24 h owing to increase the initial hydrolysis rate substantially.