Chen Hong-Zhang, Liu Zhi-Hua
State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Biotechnol J. 2015 Jun;10(6):866-85. doi: 10.1002/biot.201400705. Epub 2015 Apr 22.
Pretreatment is a key unit operation affecting the refinery efficiency of plant biomass. However, the poor efficiency of pretreatment and the lack of basic theory are the main challenges to the industrial implementation of the plant biomass refinery. The purpose of this work is to review steam explosion and its combinatorial pretreatment as a means of overcoming the intrinsic characteristics of plant biomass, including recalcitrance, heterogeneity, multi-composition, and diversity. The main advantages of the selective use of steam explosion and other combinatorial pretreatments across the diversity of raw materials are introduced. Combinatorial pretreatment integrated with other unit operations is proposed as a means to exploit the high-efficiency production of bio-based products from plant biomass. Finally, several pilot- and demonstration-scale operations of the plant biomass refinery are described. Based on the principle of selective function and structure fractionation, and multi-level and directional composition conversion, an integrated process with the combinatorial pretreatments of steam explosion and other pretreatments as the core should be feasible and conform to the plant biomass refinery concept. Combinatorial pretreatments of steam explosion and other pretreatments should be further exploited based on the type and intrinsic characteristics of the plant biomass used, the bio-based products to be made, and the complementarity of the processes.
预处理是影响植物生物质精炼厂效率的关键单元操作。然而，预处理效率低下以及基础理论的缺乏是植物生物质精炼工业应用面临的主要挑战。本文的目的是综述蒸汽爆破及其组合预处理，作为克服植物生物质固有特性（包括顽固性、异质性、多组分和多样性）的一种手段。介绍了在多种原料中选择性使用蒸汽爆破和其他组合预处理的主要优点。提出将组合预处理与其他单元操作相结合，作为从植物生物质高效生产生物基产品的一种手段。最后，描述了植物生物质精炼厂的几个中试和示范规模的操作。基于选择性功能和结构分馏以及多级定向组成转化的原理，以蒸汽爆破和其他预处理的组合预处理为核心的集成工艺应该是可行的，并且符合植物生物质精炼的概念。应根据所用植物生物质的类型和固有特性、要生产的生物基产品以及工艺的互补性，进一步开发蒸汽爆破和其他预处理的组合预处理。
