Compositional Analysis of Water-Soluble Materials in Corn Stover

Abstract

Corn stover is one of the leading feedstock candidates for commodity-scale biomass-to-ethanol processing. The composition of water-soluble materials in corn stover has been determined with greater than 90% mass closure in four of five representative samples. The mass percentage of water-soluble materials in tested stover samples varied from 14 to 27% on a dry weight basis. Over 30 previously unknown constituents of aqueous extracts were identified and quantified using a variety of chromatographic techniques. Monomeric sugars (primarily glucose and fructose) were found to be the predominant water-soluble components of corn stover, accounting for 30-46% of the dry weight of extractives (4-12% of the dry weight of feedstocks). Additional constituents contributing to the mass balance for extractives included various alditols (3-7%), aliphatic acids (7-21%), inorganic ions (10-18%), oligomeric sugars (4-12%), and a distribution of oligomers tentatively identified as being derived from phenolic glycosides (10-18%).

Efficient Degradation of Lignocellulosic Plant Biomass, without Pretreatment, by the Thermophilic Anaerobe “ Anaerocellum thermophilum ” DSM 6725

“…A comparison of the genome sequences of the two organisms might indicate genes unique to A. thermophilum DSM 6725 that allow this bacterium to grow on untreated hardwood. Alternatively, it is known that the waterextractable part of hardwoods such as poplar, which contains alkaloids, tannins, sesquiterpenes, and lignans, can be toxic to microorganisms (5,17,28,29). Chemical pretreatment of biomass, which is considered at present to be a necessary step in any applied biomass-to-biofuel conversion process, can lead to the release of additional potential inhibitors, such as furfural, metal ions, and various lignin degradation products (17,28).…”

Process Design and Economics for Biochemical Conversion of Lignocellulosic Biomass to Ethanol: Dilute-Acid Pretreatment and Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Corn Stover

“…As indicated When converting the analytical composition to components used in the Aspen model, the waterand ethanol-soluble fractions from the compositional analysis were combined under "extractives." The extractives component is assumed to be organic, with an average composition of CH 2 O, and consists primarily of sugars, sugar alcohols, and organic acids [28]. The presence of extractives in corn stover depends on the time of harvest and in part to how much microbial degradation of the material occurs after harvest; the amount of extractives in a given sample may therefore be indicative of its age.…”

- Synthetic Biology: A Promising Technology for Biofuel Production

“…Different analytical techniques, primarily gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), have been used to identify specific aromatic compounds in acidic hydrolysates from various kinds of lignocellulosic feedstocks, such as corn stover [24][25][26], oak [27], pine [26,28,29], poplar [24,[30][31][32], spruce [33][34][35], sugarcane bagasse [22], switchgrass [24], and willow [36]. In addition, aromatic degradation products in hydrolysates produced by alkaline methods have been investigated [26,37].…”