Responses of biomass briquetting and pelleting to water-involved pretreatments and subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis

Although lignocellulosic biomass has been extensively regarded as the most important resource for bioethanol, the wide application was seriously restricted by the high transportation cost of biomass. Currently, biomass densification is regarded as an acceptable solution to this issue. Herein, briquettes, pellets and their corresponding undensified biomass were pretreated by diluted-NaOH and hydrothermal method to investigate the responses of biomass densification to these typical water-involved pretreatments and subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis. The densified biomass auto-swelling was initially investigated before pretreatment. Results indicated pellets could be totally auto-swollen in an hour, while it took about 24 h for briquettes. When diluted-NaOH pretreatment was performed, biomass briquetting and pelleting improved sugar conversion rate by 20.1% and 5.5% comparing with their corresponding undensified biomass. Pelleting improved sugar conversion rate by 7.0% after hydrothermal pretreatment comparing with the undensified biomass. However, briquetting disturbed hydrothermal pretreatment resulting in the decrease of sugar conversion rate by 15.0%.