There is an increasing trend in the world for using renewable sources of fuels and
chemicals due to the continuous depletion of fossil fuel reserves besides the
environmental issues related with the exploitation of these resources.
Lignocellulosic biomass is seen as the most promising candidate to be used instead
of fossil sources because of its availability, relatively low price and less competition
with food and feed crops. In this study, corn cobs, a lignocellulosic agricultural
waste, were subjected to alkaline pretreatment for the co-production of glucose
and hemicellulose based films with a multi-product approach in order to diversify
the product range and to increase the revenues of the process. The pretreatment
applied to lignocellulosic agricultural waste has a significant impact on the
quantities and properties of the products that can be produced from the
lignocellulosic feedstock upon pretreatment. Within the context of this study, the
parameters utilized during the alkaline pretreatment of corn cobs were investigated
in terms of their effect on the amount of glucose obtained through the enzymatic
v
hydrolysis of the cellulosic portion and on the mechanical properties of the films
obtained through the solvent casting of the hemicellulosic portion of corn cob. The
pretreatment parameters including the alkaline type and concentration, addition
and type of boron compound as well as the duration of pretreatment, were
optimized with respect to the amounts and the properties of the products.
Following the pretreatments conducted with 24 % KOH and 1% NaBH4, which were
the initial pretreatment parameters in the study, a glucose yield of 22 % and a
tensile energy to break of 2.1 MJ/m3 were obtained. Upon the optimization of the
pretreatment procedure, the optimum pretreatment conditions were determined
as 5 % NaOH, 1 % NaBH4 and 3 hours and a glucose yield of approximately 31% and
a tensile energy to break of around 1.7 MJ/m3 were obtained.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12614472/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 July 2012 |
| Creators | Toraman, Hilal Ezgi |
| Contributors | Bakir Bolukbasi, Ufuk |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | Access forbidden for 1 year |
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