Carbon dioxide explosion pretreatment

Supercritical CO2 is used for carbon dioxide explosion pretreatment. CO2 is cheap, nontoxic, inflammable, and easy to extract after explosion (Taherzadeh and Karimi, 2008). Due to the release of carbon dioxide at high pressure, lignocelluloses are disturbed, which increases the surface area for further hydrolysis. Glucose release was observed to increase with increasing pressure and temperature of the carbon dioxide was applied in supercritical carbon dioxide explosion. However, using subcritical carbon dioxide results in opposite scenario. 

Zheng, Y.Z., Lin, H.M., Tsao, G.T., 1998. Pretreatment for cellulose hydrolysis by carbon dioxide explosion. Biotechnology Progress 14, 890—896. 

FIGURE 3.6 Schematic representation of an explosion pretreatment process, in which the explosive agents may he steam, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide. 

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