Soumya Shraddhya Paul, Amity University Noida
For sustainable development, biological lignin valorization has come across as a major change. But currently, biorefineries are producing lignin with less fractionation for biological conversion, this affects the economic outcome. It’s important to note here that substantial changes in the biorefinery can affect the carbohydrate efficiency, as well as the capital, which will increase. Hence to counter this problem researchers have developed a “plug-in process of lignin” and also combined leading pretreatment technologies. To improve the bioconversion of lignin and to enhance carbohydrate processing one needs to solubilize lignin via lowering molecular weight and increasing hydrophilic groups. The plug-in process can enable a low polyhydroxyalkanoate selling price, this can result in the co-production of polyhydroxyalkanoate which is a co-product of cellulosic ethanol. Through this, we get an idea that the plug-in process can help in sustainable development as it reduces carbon production.
Brief About the Study
Through this study, the scientists address how plug-in lignin can counteract the effect of wastage of many economically feasible products and can provide us with biological lignin valorization. The research showed the lignin bioconversion upon integration of PIPOL (plug-in processes of lignin) with five leading pretreatment techniques in biorefinery. PIPOL is designed to improve solubility and reactivity of lignin along with its microbial conversion, it is oftentimes integrated with solubilization, conditioning, and fermentation. The overall performance of PIPOL was evaluated based on comparing the yields, stream characteristics and processability of lignin, and the titer and yield of PHAs produced by engineered P. putida KT2440. To check the microbial conversion done by chemical mechanism is illustrated by the characterization of lignin stream. Finally to assess the performance of biological lignin valorization and its overall efficiency techno-economic analysis (TEA) is conducted through this test it deduces the profit of the biorefinery as well.
Results
Based on the study it was shown that the plug-in process improves the dissolution of lignin, the current problem with the pretreatment is that it generates a large amount of solid lignin, the waste stream which is not that efficient when it comes to bioconversion. Hence, dissolution of the lignin to aromatic monomers and oligomers can serve as substrates for microbes, therefore, being more economical as well as sustainable. PIPOL is also seen to be working as a facilitator when it comes to the enzymatic hydrolysis of carbohydrates, this helps in the full utilization of carbohydrates. It was also seen that PIPOL also helps in microbial conversion of lignin to produce PHAs (polyhydroxyalkanoates).
Conclusion
Lignin is considered to be a promising feedstock for the generation of chemicals, biofuels, and materials which is critical to accelerating the industrial implementation of biorefinery. Liquid lignin can provide a lot of help and enhance the fuller utilization of carbohydrates. It can provide us with a sustainable form of biorefinery hence it’s important that along with pretreatment PIPOL should also be used.
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Reference:
- Liu, Z.-H., Hao, N., Wang, Y.-Y., Dou, C., Lin, F., Shen, R., Bura, R., Hodge, D. B., Dale, B. E., Ragauskas, A. J., Yang, B., & Yuan, J. S. (2021). Transforming biorefinery designs with ‘Plug-In Processes of Lignin’ to enable economic waste valorization. Nature Communications, 12(1), 3912. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23920-4
About author:
Soumya Shraddhya Paul is an undergrad biotechnology student who worked in building 3D prosthetics in Base Hospital Delhi Cantt, and holds a key interest in nutraceuticals and enzymology.
Social Media Info: www.linkedin.com/in/soumya-shraddhya-paul-858229203
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