TY - JOUR
T1 - Simultaneous Enzymatic Cellulose Hydrolysis and Product Separation in a Radial-Flow Membrane Bioreactor
AU - Al-Mardeai, Saleha
AU - Elnajjar, Emad
AU - Hashaikeh, Raed
AU - Kruczek, Boguslaw
AU - Van der Bruggen, Bart
AU - Al-Zuhair, Sulaiman
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This research was funded by the United Arab Emirates University through research projects #31R165 and #31N384.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/1/1
Y1 - 2022/1/1
N2 - Hydrolysis is the heart of the lignocellulose-to-bioethanol conversion process. Using enzymes to catalyze the hydrolysis represents a more environmentally friendly pathway compared to other techniques. However, for the process to be economically feasible, solving the product inhibition problem and enhancing enzyme reusability are essential. Prior research demonstrated that a flat-sheet membrane bioreactor (MBR), using an inverted dead-end filtration system, could achieve 86.7% glucose yield from purified cellulose in 6 h. In this study, the effectiveness of flat-sheet versus radial-flow MBR designs was assessed using real, complex lignocellulose biomass, namely date seeds (DSs). The tubular radial-flow MBR used here had more than a 10-fold higher membrane surface area than the flat-sheet MBR design. With simultaneous product separation using the flat-sheet inverted dead-end filtration MBR, a glucose yield of 10.8% from pretreated DSs was achieved within 8 h of reaction, which was three times higher than the yield without product separation, which was only 3.5% within the same time and under the same conditions. The superiority of the tubular radial-flow MBR to hydrolyze pretreated DSs was confirmed with a glucose yield of 60% within 8 h. The promising results obtained by the novel tubular MBR could pave the way for an economic lignocellulose-to-bioethanol process.
AB - Hydrolysis is the heart of the lignocellulose-to-bioethanol conversion process. Using enzymes to catalyze the hydrolysis represents a more environmentally friendly pathway compared to other techniques. However, for the process to be economically feasible, solving the product inhibition problem and enhancing enzyme reusability are essential. Prior research demonstrated that a flat-sheet membrane bioreactor (MBR), using an inverted dead-end filtration system, could achieve 86.7% glucose yield from purified cellulose in 6 h. In this study, the effectiveness of flat-sheet versus radial-flow MBR designs was assessed using real, complex lignocellulose biomass, namely date seeds (DSs). The tubular radial-flow MBR used here had more than a 10-fold higher membrane surface area than the flat-sheet MBR design. With simultaneous product separation using the flat-sheet inverted dead-end filtration MBR, a glucose yield of 10.8% from pretreated DSs was achieved within 8 h of reaction, which was three times higher than the yield without product separation, which was only 3.5% within the same time and under the same conditions. The superiority of the tubular radial-flow MBR to hydrolyze pretreated DSs was confirmed with a glucose yield of 60% within 8 h. The promising results obtained by the novel tubular MBR could pave the way for an economic lignocellulose-to-bioethanol process.
KW - Alkaline pretreatment
KW - Cellulose
KW - Enzymatic hydrolysis
KW - Membrane bioreactor
KW - Product inhibition
KW - Product separation
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U2 - 10.3390/molecules27010288
DO - 10.3390/molecules27010288
M3 - Article
C2 - 35011519
AN - SCOPUS:85122270317
SN - 1420-3049
VL - 27
JO - Molecules
JF - Molecules
IS - 1
M1 - 288
ER -