Pretreatment and Bioprocess Trials in Various Reactor System on Lignocellulosic Biomass for Cellulosic Biomaterials

Abstract

Pretreatment on lignocellulosic biomass prior to extraction of biomaterials, degradation of bioproduct or production of biomaterial/bioproduct/biofuel, crucially influences the intended outcomes. The pretreatment on oil palm frond as one of the most abundant agriculture residues in Malaysia, can be conducted based on the need of the methodology, either for small, lab, pilot or industrial scales. In this article, examples of reactors are used for the pretreatment trials for instance the use of microreactor (Bioshake iQ), conical shake flask, mini-cylindrical reactor scale (fabricated) and monitoring bioreactor (BlueSens Monitoring GmbH) for fermentation as the post reactions from the pretreatment process. All trials were conducted based on certain needs for research objectives to monitor certain analytical outcomes like Crystallinity Index (CrI) and Lateral Order Index (LOI). Prior to pilot or industrial scales, factorial scale-up theory can be simulated only when the crucial small-scale findings are proven systematically.