Pretreatment of corn stover by torrefaction for improving reducing sugar and biohydrogen production

The torrefaction pretreatment technology with different temperature varying from 160℃ to 240℃ was utilized to enhance the enzymatic saccharification and hydrogen production potential of corn stover. The composition characteristics, Crystal Intensity (CrI), reducing sugars yield and hydrogen production of the pretreated corn stover were detected to explore the torrefaction pretreatment effectiveness. Results revealed that the reducing sugar yield and hydrogen production from corn stover were improved significantly through torrefaction pretreatment, both the maximum reducing sugar yield of 427.86 ± 19 mg/g Total solid(TS) and hydrogen yield of 123.72 mL/g TS were obtained at 200 ℃, increased by 46.41% and 70.79%, respectively. The kinetic parameters from Gompertz model showed torrefaction pretreatment could shorten the lag phase time of enzymatic saccharification and hydrogen production. The reducing sugar data can be fitted well by fractal-like kinetic model and Gompertz model.