Impacts of delignification and hot water pretreatment on the water induced cell wall swelling behavior of grasses and its relation to cellulolytic enzyme hydrolysis and binding

The relationships between biomass composition, water retention value (WRV), settling volume and enzymatic glucose yield and enzyme binding is investigated in this work by employing grasses pretreated with combinations of alkaline hydrogen peroxide (AHP) delignification and liquid hot water pretreatment that result in significant alterations of cell wall properties and subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis yields. Specifically, these cell wall treatments are performed on corn stover and switchgrass to generate material with a range of lignin (6–35 %) and xylan (2–28 %) contents as well as a range of other properties such as carboxylic acid content, water binding affinity and swellability. It was determined that WRV and settling volume are predictors of glucose yield (R² = 0.900 and 0.895 respectively) over the range of materials and treatment conditions used. It was also observed that mild AHP delignification can result in threefold increases in the WRV. Dynamic vapor sorption isotherms demonstrated that AHP-delignified corn stover exhibited an increased affinity for water sorption from the vapor phase relative to untreated corn stover. These results indicate that these water properties may be useful proxies for biomass susceptibility to enzymatic deconstruction.