Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 354, Issue 6310, Pages 329-333Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf7810
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Funding
- Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research: Biomass for a Swiss Energy Future through the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation grant [KTI.2014.0116]
- Swiss National Science Foundation [PYAPP2_154281]
- EPFL
- DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (DOE BER Office of Science) [DE-FC02-07ER64494]
- Center for Direct Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels (C3Bio)
- Energy Frontier Research Center - DOE Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences [DE-SC0000997]
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Practical, high-yield lignin depolymerization methods could greatly increase biorefinery productivity and profitability. However, development of these methods is limited by the presence of interunit carbon-carbon bonds within native lignin, and further by formation of such linkages during lignin extraction. We report that adding formaldehyde during biomass pretreatment produces a soluble lignin fraction that can be converted to guaiacyl and syringyl monomers at near theoretical yields during subsequent hydrogenolysis (47 mole% of Klason lignin for beech and 78 mole% for a high-syringyl transgenic poplar). These yields were three to seven times those obtained without formaldehyde, which prevented lignin condensation by forming 1,3-dioxane structures with lignin side-chain hydroxyl groups. By depolymerizing cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin separately, monomer yields were between 76 and 90 mole % for these three major biomass fractions.
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