Glucose, conversion from cellulose

This study shows that steam pretreatment is an efficient method to increase the enzymatic accessibility of the water-insoluble, cellulose-rich component in corn stover. After pretreatment, the enzymatic conversion from cellulose to glucose increased nearly four times, compared to the untreated corn stover. 

Supercritical fluid solvents have been tested for reactive extractions of liquid and gaseous fuels from heavy oils, coal, oil shale, and biomass. In some cases the solvent participates in the reactions, as in the hydrolysis of coal and heavy oils with water. Related applications include conversion of cellulose to glucose in water, dehgnincation of wood with ammonia, and liquefaction of lignin in water. 

Enzymatic Hydrolysis. Saccharification of wood polysaccharides to sugars can be accomplished by enzymatic techniques instead of acid hydrolysis. The U.S. Army Natick Laboratories developed a method for conversion of cellulose to glucose with a cellulose enzyme from an active strain of the fungus Trichoderma viride. However, extensive pretreatment of wood is necessary before sufficient enzymatic hydrolysis will take place. 

Polymeric carbohydrates available from the biorefinery can serve as starting materials for 5-HMF Recently, LaCl3 has been used to catalyze the conversion of cellulose to 5-HMF (along with glucose, levulinic acid, and cel-lobiose) at elevated temperatures in water.489... 

Water used in this supercritical state behaves very differently from water under normal pressure and temperare." In such a supercritical state, the water can be expected to act as an acid or base, but by returning the system to ordinary conditions before pyrolysis occurs, glucose and its derivatives could be obtained in water from cellulose. Therefore, supercritical water treatment can be superior to enzymatic saccharification or oidinaiy acid hydrolysis mentioned above, for the chemical conversion of biomass to useful chemicals. 

Further Improvement of Glucose-Xylose-Fermenting Saccharomyces Yeasts for Effective, Economical Conversion of Sugars from Cellulosic Biomass to Biofuel Ethanol. 

Continuous fermentation has previously been tested for cellulosic substrates (e.g., glucose conversion) by thermophilic anaerobic bacteria [24,25] however, the present study is, to our best knowledge, the first one dealing with continuous cofermentation of glucose and xylose derived from lignocellulosic biomass using these microorganisms. 

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