Depolymerization of microcrystalline cellulose by the combination of ultrasound and Fenton reagent
Mei-Fang Zhang1, Yuan-Hang Qin1, Jia-Yu Ma1
1Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Process of Ministry of Education, School of Chemical Engineering and Pharmacy, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan 430073, China.
Abstract:
In this study, the combined use of Fenton reagent and ultrasound to the pretreatment of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) for subsequent enzyme hydrolysis was investigated. The morphological analysis showed that the aspect ratio of MCC was greatly reduced after pretreatment. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and degree of polymerization (DP) analyses showed that Fenton reagent was more efficient in decreasing the crystallinity of MCC while ultrasound was more efficient in decreasing the DP of MCC. The combination of Fenton reaction and ultrasound, which produced the lowest crystallinity (84.8 ± 0.2%) and DP (124.7 ± 0.6) of MCC and the highest yield of reducing sugar (22.9 ± 0.3 g/100 g), provides a promising pretreatment process for MCC depolymerization.
