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Updated: Jun 18, 2025
Extraction of Lignin with High β-O-4 Content by Mild Ethanol Extraction and Its Effect on the Depolymerization Yield
Published on: January 7, 2019
Structure changes of lignin and their effects on enzymatic hydrolysis for bioethanol production: a focus on lignin
Jinju Hou1, Qiuzhuo Zhang2, Fuxiang Tian3
1School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai 201418, China; Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Biotransformation of Organic Solid Waste, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China.
Abstract:
Enzymatic hydrolysis contributes to obtaining fermentable sugars using pretreated lignocellulose materials for bioethanol generation. Unfortunately, the pretreatment of lignocellulose causes low substrate enzymatic hydrolysis, which is due to the structure changes of lignin to produce main phenolic by-products and non-productive cellulase adsorption. It is reported that modified lignin enhances the speed of enzymatic hydrolysis through single means to decrease the negative effects of fermentation inhibitors or non-productive cellulase adsorption. However, a suitable modified lignin should be selected to simultaneously reduce the fermentation inhibitors concentration and non-productive cellulase adsorption for saving resources and maximizing the enzymatic hydrolysis productivity. Meanwhile, the adsorption micro-mechanisms of modified lignin with fermentation inhibitors and cellulase remain elusive. In this review, different pretreatment effects toward lignin structure, and their impacts on subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis are analyzed. The main modification methods for lignin are presented. Density functional theory is used to screen suitable modification methods for the simultaneous reduction of fermentation inhibitors and non-productive cellulase adsorption. Lignin-fermentation inhibitors and lignin-cellulase interaction mechanisms are discussed using different advanced analysis techniques. This article addresses the gap in previous reviews concerning the application of modified lignin in the enhancement of bioethanol production. For the first time, based on existing studies, this work posits the hypothesis of applying theoretical simulations to screen efficient modified lignin-based adsorbents, in order to achieve a dual optimization of the detoxification and saccharification processes. We aim to improve the integrated lignocellulose transformation procedure for the effective generation of cleaner bioethanol.
