Neutrons helping ORNL researchers unlock secrets to cheaper ethanol

New research could help scientists identify the most effective pretreatment strategy and lower the cost of biomass conversion.

New insight into the structure of switchgrass and poplars is fueling discussions that could result in more efficient methods to turn biomass into biofuel.

New research could help scientists identify the most effective pretreatment strategy and lower the cost of biomass conversion.

Researchers from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Georgia Tech used small-angle neutron scattering to probe the structural impact of an acid pretreatment of lignocellulose from switchgrass. Pre-treatment is an essential step to extract cellulose, which can through a series of enzymatic procedures be converted into sugars and then ethanol.

The findings, published in Biomacromolecules, could help scientists identify the most effective pretreatment strategy and lower the cost of the biomass conversion process.

"My hope is that this paper and subsequent discussions about our observations will lead to a better understanding of the complex mechanisms of lignocellulose breakdown," said co-author Volker Urban of ORNL's chemical sciences division.

A key finding is that native switchgrass that has been pre-treated with hot dilute sulfuric acid undergoes significant morphological changes. While the data demonstrate that the switchgrass materials are very similar at length scales greater than 1,000 angstroms, the materials are profoundly different at shorter lengths. An angstrom is equal to 1/10th of a nanometer.