Abstract
Biofuels and -chemicals can be produced from
carbohydrates in lignocellulosic biomass. For an
efficient total enzymatic hydrolysis of the plant cell
wall polysaccharides, a pretreatment step is required.
Ionic liquids (ILs) have recently gained considerable
interest as solvents for cellulose and lignocellulosic
biomass and pretreatment of lignocellulose with ILs is
currently an extensively studied concept. However, the
applicability of ILs in an integrated process, in which
enzymatic hydrolysis is done in the same vessel as the IL
pretreatment without IL removal and substrate washing
between the process steps, suffers from the fact that
cellulose-dissolving ILs severely inactivate the
cellulases used to catalyse the polysaccharide
hydrolysis. This article reviews research on cellulase
activity, stability and action in hydrolysis in
cellulose-dissolving ILs, and different routes to
increase the cellulase performance in these reaction
systems. Impressive advances have recently been made in
discovering and developing cellulases and other glycosyl
hydrolases with increased IL-tolerance. Different
cellulase stabilisation techniques and the design of
enzyme-friendly cellulose-dissolving ILs are also
discussed. In light of the recent developments, the
integrated enzymatic hydrolysis of polysaccharides in the
presence of ILs may well prove to be a potential route
for utilizing lignocellulosic biomass as feedstock in
biofuel and -chemical production.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 694-714 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | Green Chemistry |
Volume | 17 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2014 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |