Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 28, 2026
Cryo-Electron Tomography Remote Data Collection and Subtomogram Averaging
Published on: July 12, 2022
Biomass accessibility analysis using electron tomography
Jacob D Hinkle1, Peter N Ciesielski2, Kenny Gruchalla1
1Computational Science Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 15013 Denver West Parkway, Golden, CO 80401 USA.
Background:
Substrate accessibility to catalysts has been a dominant theme in theories of biomass deconstruction. However, current methods of quantifying accessibility do not elucidate mechanisms for increased accessibility due to changes in microstructure following pretreatment.
Results:
We introduce methods for characterization of surface accessibility based on fine-scale microstructure of the plant cell wall as revealed by 3D electron tomography. These methods comprise a general framework, enabling analysis of image-based cell wall architecture using a flexible model of accessibility. We analyze corn stover cell walls, both native and after undergoing dilute acid pretreatment with and without a steam explosion process, as well as AFEX pretreatment.
Conclusion:
Image-based measures provide useful information about how much pretreatments are able to increase biomass surface accessibility to a wide range of catalyst sizes. We find a strong dependence on probe size when measuring surface accessibility, with a substantial decrease in biomass surface accessibility to probe sizes above 5-10 nm radius compared to smaller probes.
