FARE laboratory, INRA, University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, 2 esplanade Roland-Garros, 51100, Reims, France.
PICT platform, University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, 45 rue Cognacq-Jay, 51100, Reims, France.
Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 18;7(1):8838. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-08740-1.
Lignocellulosic biomass is the only renewable carbon resource available in sufficient amount on Earth to go beyond the fossil-based carbon economy. Its transformation requires controlled breakdown of polymers into a set of molecules to make fuels, chemicals and materials. But biomass is a network of various inter-connected polymers which are very difficult to deconstruct optimally. In particular, saccharification potential of lignocellulosic biomass depends on several complex chemical and physical factors. For the first time, an easily measurable fluorescence properties of steam-exploded biomass samples from miscanthus, poplar and wheat straw was shown to be directly correlated to their saccharification potential. Fluorescence can thus be advantageously used as a predictive method of biomass saccharification. The loss in fluorescence occurring after the steam explosion pretreatment and increasing with pretreatment severity does not originate from the loss in lignin content, but rather from a decrease of the lignin β-aryl-ether linkage content. Fluorescence lifetime analysis demonstrates that monolignols making lignin become highly conjugated after steam explosion pretreatment. These results reveal that lignin chemical composition is a more important feature to consider than its content to understand and to predict biomass saccharification.
木质纤维素生物质是地球上唯一可再生的碳资源，其数量足以超越基于化石的碳经济。将其转化为燃料、化学品和材料需要将聚合物控制分解为一组分子。但生物质是一个由各种相互连接的聚合物组成的网络，要对其进行最佳的解构非常困难。特别是，木质纤维素生物质的糖化潜力取决于几个复杂的化学和物理因素。首次表明，从芒草、杨树和小麦秸秆的蒸汽爆破生物质样品中可以轻易测量到的荧光特性与其糖化潜力直接相关。因此，荧光可以被有利地用作预测生物质糖化的方法。蒸汽爆炸预处理后荧光的损失随着预处理强度的增加而增加，但这种损失并非源于木质素含量的减少，而是源于木质素β-芳基醚键含量的减少。荧光寿命分析表明，木质素中的愈创木酚在蒸汽爆炸预处理后变得高度共轭。这些结果表明，木质素的化学组成比其含量更重要，是理解和预测生物质糖化的一个更重要的特征。
