Investigation of enzyme formulation on pretreated switchgrass

This work studied the benefits of adding different enzyme cocktails (cellulase, xylanase, β-glucosidase) to pretreated switchgrass. Pretreatment methods included ammonia fiber expansion (AFEX), dilute-acid (DA), liquid hot water (LHW), lime, lime + ball-milling, soaking in aqueous ammonia (SAA), and sulfur dioxide (SO2). The compositions of the pretreated materials were analyzed and showed a strong correlation between initial xylan composition and the benefits of xylanase addition. Adding xylanase dramatically improved xylan yields for SAA (+8.4%) and AFEX (+6.3%), and showed negligible improvement (0–2%) for the pretreatments with low xylan content (dilute-acid, SO2). Xylanase addition also improved overall yields with lime + ball-milling and SO2 achieving the highest overall yields from pretreated biomass (98.3% and 93.2%, respectively). Lime + ball-milling obtained an enzymatic yield of 92.3 kg of sugar digested/kg of protein loaded.