Effects of Mixing and Particle Size on the Kinetics and Dynamics of Enzymatically Treated Cotton Cellulose (MCC) in Continuous Flow Reactor

Enzymatic hydrolysis (EH) of cellulosic biomass needs tremendous technological advance-ment so as to efficiently convert cellulosic biomass into renewable fuels and commodity chemicals. Therefore, development of highly improved process engineering techniques is inevitable to reduce the processing cost of the fluids in the reactor. In this investigation, effect of mixing and particle size on the EH of microcrystalline cotton cellulose (MCC) has been investigated by using a spatially averaged low-dimensional two-mode mixing (TMM) model. The model simulations were carried out for the average particle sizes of MCC rang -ing from 0.78 to 25.52 mu m and mixing speed of eta -> 0 (very high) to eta -> 1000 (very low). The effects of mixing and particle size on the formation of glucose and reducing sugar (RS) have been quantified by exploiting the rigorous multistep reaction kinetics and TMM model. To access the bond-breaking ability, its effects on the degree of polymerization (DP) was also analyzed. The results deduced that increase in mixing limitations and reduc-tion in particle size imparts a significant increase in glucose and RS yield while decreasing the DP drastically. Thus, our simulations reveal that while eta -> 1000 economizes the pro-cess by reducing the energy requirements, reduction in particle size can be beneficial for reducing the residence time in the depolymerization of MCC to fuels and chemicals.

Automated summary

Efficient conversion of cellulosic biomass into renewable fuels and chemicals requires significant technological advancements in enzymatic hydrolysis. This study investigated the effects of mixing and particle size on the enzymatic hydrolysis of microcrystalline cotton cellulose (MCC) using a low-dimensional two-mode mixing (TMM) model. The simulations considered a range of average particle sizes for MCC and varying mixing speeds. The results showed that increasing mixing limitations and reducing particle size significantly increased the yield of glucose and reducing sugar, while decreasing the degree of polymerization (DP). These findings suggest that optimizing mixing conditions and particle size can improve the efficiency of the hydrolysis process.