Low Moisture Anhydrous Ammonia Pretreatment of Four Lignocellulosic Materials—Distillers Dried Grains With Solubles, Corn Gluten Feed, Corn Fiber, and Oil Palm Frond

Lignin and hemicellulose structures in cellulosic materials serve as a barrier for enzyme reactions. A pretreatment step is often needed to break these components to allow the biomass to be utilized as a source of value-added products. Various available pretreatment methods possess common drawbacks of the high amount of liquid and chemical requirements, harsh process conditions, and the high amount of waste produced, which driving up the production costs of bioproducts. Low moisture anhydrous ammonia (LMAA) pretreatment capable of eliminating those drawbacks. In this study, Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS), corn gluten feed (CGF), corn fiber (CF), and oil palm frond (OPF) with different moisture contents were subjected to LMAA pretreatment at the specific ammonia loading rate, 1 h ammoniation, and 75°C incubation temperature. This pretreatment successfully decreased the lignin content of the materials, increased their percentage of α-cellulose, and improved enzymatic digestibility for most of the materials tested. The effect of moisture content (30 and 50% db) was found to be more significant than that of incubation time (24 and 72 h).

CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF FEEDS DEPENDING ON BASIC SOIL TILLAGE METHODS AND NUTRITION BACKGROUND

In 2014–2016 in Zakame of the Republic of Tatarstan, a study was conducted to increase the productivity of corn (Mashuk 250 hybrid) for silage using various fertilizer systems (without fertilizers – control, NPK at 40 t/ha of green mass, PK - background, background + N40, background + N60 , background + N80, background + N100, background + N120) and tillage methods (plowing - control, tillage cultivation). The availability of phosphorus in the soil of the experimental plot was sufficient for the formation of the planned yield, therefore, phosphorus fertilizers were not added. The nitrogen content in the green mass of corn for plowing was 3.03 ... 3.85%, phosphorus - 0.45 ... 0.71%, potassium - 1.71 ... 1.98%, for non-dump processing, respectively - 3.01 ... 3, 83; 0.43 ... 0.69 and 1.69 ... 1.97%. Against an unfertilized background, the nitrogen content in the green mass of corn for plowing was equal to 3.03%, with the introduction of NK under the yield of 40 t/ha - 3.41%, K - 3.14%. In the variant with the use of anhydrous ammonia at a dose of 40 kg of active substance/ha against a background of potash fertilizers, the amount of nitrogen in the green mass was 3.34%, 60 kg - 3.41%, 80 kg - 3.43%, 100 kg - 3.76% and 120 kg - 3.85% (0.82% higher than unfertilized background). The maximum NPK removal in the experiment was observed by plowing in the background + N120 variant (1183; 218; 608 kg/ha, respectively), background + N100 (1114; 207; 584 kg/ha) and when fertilizing with a yield of 40 t/ha of green mass (1051; 206; 598 kg/ha). With subsurface processing, the take-off decreased, but the distribution of the first variants of this indi

Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Different Pretreatment and Product Separation Technologies for Butanol Bioprocessing from Oil Palm Frond

Environmental impact assessment is a crucial aspect of biofuels production to ensure that the process generates emissions within the designated limits. In typical cellulosic biofuel production process, the pretreatment and downstream processing stages were reported to require a high amount of chemicals and energy, thus generating high emissions. Cellulosic butanol production while using low moisture anhydrous ammonia (LMAA) pretreatment was expected to have a low chemical, water, and energy footprint, especially when the process was combined with more efficient downstream processing technologies. In this study, the quantification of environmental impact potentials from cellulosic butanol production plants was conducted with modeled different pretreatment and product separation approaches. The results have shown that LMAA pretreatment possessed a potential for commercialization by having low energy requirements when compared to the other modeled pretreatments. With high safety measures that reduce the possibility of anhydrous ammonia leaking to the air, LMAA pretreatment resulted in GWP of 5.72 kg CO2 eq./L butanol, ecotoxicity potential of 2.84 × 10−6 CTU eco/L butanol, and eutrophication potential of 0.011 kg N eq./L butanol. The lowest energy requirement in biobutanol production (19.43 MJ/L), as well as better life-cycle energy metrics performances (NEV of 24.69 MJ/L and NER of 2.27) and environmental impacts potentials (GWP of 3.92 kg N eq./L butanol and ecotoxicity potential of 2.14 × 10−4 CTU eco/L butanol), were recorded when the LMAA pretreatment was combined with the membrane pervaporation process in the product separation stage.