A new correction method for determination on carbohydrates in lignocellulosic biomass

The accurate determination on the key components in lignocellulosic biomass is the premise of pretreatment and bioconversion. Currently, the widely used 72% H2SO4 two-step hydrolysis quantitative saccharification (QS) procedure uses loss coefficient of monosaccharide standards to correct monosaccharide loss in the secondary hydrolysis (SH) of QS and may result in excessive correction. By studying the quantitative relationships of glucose and xylose losses during special hydrolysis conditions and the HMF and furfural productions, a simple correction on the monosaccharide loss from both PH and SH was established by using HMF and furfural as the calibrators. This method was used to the component determination on corn stover, Miscanthus and cotton stalk (raw materials and pretreated) and compared to the NREL method. It has been proved that this method can avoid excessive correction on the samples with high-carbohydrate contents. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.