Efficient pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass with high recovery of solid lignin and fermentable sugars using Fenton reaction in a mixed solvent

Background Pretreatment of biomass to maximize the recovery of fermentable sugars as well as to minimize the amount of enzyme inhibitors formed during the pretreatment is a challenge in biofuel process. We develop a modified Fenton pretreatment in a mixed solvent (water/DMSO) to combine the advantages of organosolv and Fenton pretreatments. The hemicellulose and cellulose in corncob were effectively degraded into xylose, glucose, and soluble glucose oligomers in a few hours. This saccharide solution, separated from the solid lignin simply by filtration, can be directly applied to the subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis and ethanol fermentation. Results After the pretreatment, 94% carbohydrates were recovered as soluble monosaccharide (xylose and glucose) and glucose oligomers in the filtrates, and 87% of solid lignin was recovered as the filter residue. The filtrates were directly applied to enzymatic hydrolysis, and 92% of raw corncob glucose was recovered. The hydrolysates containing the glucose and xylose from the enzymatic hydrolysis were directly applied to ethanol fermentation with ethanol yield equals 79% of theoretical yield. The pretreatment conditions (130 °C, 1.5 bar; 30 min to 4 h) are mild, and the pretreatment reagents (H2O2, FeCl3, and solvent) had low impact to environment. Using ferrimagnetic Fe3O4 resulted in similar pretreatment efficiency and Fe3O4 could be removed by filtration. Conclusions A modified Fenton pretreatment of corncob in DMSO/water was developed. Up to 94% of the carbohydrate content of corncob was recovered as a saccharide solution simply by filtration. Such filtrate was directly applied to the subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis and where 92% of the corncob glucose content was obtained. The hydrolysate so obtained was directly applied to ethanol fermentation with good fermentability. The pretreatment method is simple, and the additives and solvents used have a low impact to the environment. This method provides the opportunity to substantially maximize the carbohydrate and solid lignin recovery of biomass with a comparatively green process, such that the efficiency of biorefinery as well as the bioethanol production process can be improved. The pretreatment is still relatively energy intensive and expensive, and further optimization of the process is required in large-scale operation. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13068-018-1288-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.