Comparison of Milling Modes as a Pretreatment Method for Cellulosic Biofuel Production

Abstract

Here we proposed clean and acceptable pretreatment methods for the pretreatment of lignlicellulosic biomass. To prove the feasibility of it, we compared three modes of mills such as ball, attrition and planetary mills. Among the mill modes, attrition and planetary mills are more effective to reduce biomass size when compared to ball mill. In enzymatic saccharification process, planetary mill treated crystalline cellulose produced higher amount of glucose and galactose than attrition mill treated. The mill pretreatments did not cause toxic compounds, such as hydroxymethylfurfuraldehyde (HMF) and levulinic acid. It was performed in enzymatic process buffer. Hence, it is not needed to exchange buffer for further process. It is convenient and economic process for cellulosic biomass pretreatment and can be applied to mass biofuel production.