Affiliations 

  • 1 Chemical and Process Engineering, The Sirindhorn International Thai-German Graduate School of Engineering, King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok 10800, Thailand
  • 2 Biorefinery and Process Automation Engineering Center (BPAEC), King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok 10800, Thailand
  • 3 Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Agro-Industry, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand
  • 4 Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Semenyih 43500, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 5 Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin 64002, Taiwan
Bioengineering (Basel), 2021 Nov 02;8(11).
PMID: 34821737 DOI: 10.3390/bioengineering8110171

Abstract

Wax is an organic compound found on the surface of lignocellulose biomass to protect plants from physical and biological stresses in nature. With its small mass fraction in biomass, wax has been neglected from inclusion in the design of the biorefinery process. This study investigated the interfering effect of wax in three types of lignocellulosic biomass, including rice straw (RS), Napier grass (NG), and sugarcane bagasse (SB). In this study, although small fractions of wax were extracted from RS, NG, and SB at 0.57%, 0.61%, and 1.69%, respectively, dewaxing causes changes in the plant compositions and their functional groups and promotes dissociations of lignocellulose fibrils. Additionally, dewaxing of biomass samples increased reducing sugar by 1.17-, 1.04-, and 1.35-fold in RS, NG, and SB, respectively. The ethanol yield increased by 1.11-, 1.05-, and 1.23-fold after wax removal from RS, NG, and SB, respectively. The chemical composition profiles of the waxes obtained from RS, NG, and SB showed FAME, alcohol, and alkane as the major groups. According to the conversion rate of the dewaxing process and ethanol fermentation, the wax outputs of RS, NG, and SB are 5.64, 17.00, and 6.00 kg/ton, respectively. The current gasoline price is around USD 0.903 per liter, making ethanol more expensive than gasoline. Therefore, in order to reduce the cost of ethanol in the biorefinery industry, other valuable products (such as wax) should be considered for commercialization. The cost of natural wax ranges from USD 2 to 22 per kilogram, depending on the source of the extracted wax. The wax yields obtained from RS, SB, and NG have the potential to increase profits in the biorefining process and could provide an opportunity for application in a wider range of downstream industries than just biofuels.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.