Center of Biological and Industrial Processes for Biofuels - CeProBIO
| Grant number: | 17/24465-3 |
| Support type: | Program for Research on Bioenergy (BIOEN) - Regular Program Grants |
| Duration: | August 01, 2018 - July 31, 2020 |
| Field of knowledge: | Biological Sciences - Biophysics |
| Principal Investigator: | Eduardo Ribeiro de Azevedo |
| Grantee: | Eduardo Ribeiro de Azevedo |
| Home Institution: | Instituto de Física de São Carlos (IFSC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil |
Abstract
The production of advanced biofuels from lignocellulosic renewable feedstocks (such as sugarcane bagasse, for example) requires to hydrolyse the biomass polysaccharides into simple sugars. The efficiency of such a process depends mostly on the development of effective pretreatment processes and on less expensive and more efficient enzymatic cocktails. Thus, it is necessary to decrease the recalcitrance of the lignocellulosic materials, thus facilitating the enzymatic hydrolysis to fermentable sugars. However, to achieve that a detailed comprehension of the plant cell wall and its modification upon pre-treatments is highly desirable. Nuclear Magnetic Ressonance (ssNMR) provides many methods that can be used to achieve this goal, allowing to obtain information about chemical composition, structure and dynamics of the cell wall. Thus, in this proposal we intent to developed approach based on both solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Ressonance (ssNMR) and Time Domain Nuclear Magnetic Ressonance (TDNMR) to obtainan in-depth characterization of the plant cell walls in terms of their composition, architecture, morphology, crystallinity and other biophysical and biochemical properties relevant to biomass recalcitrance. Furthermore, we will carry out a number of specific studies aiming to understand in detail how plant cell wall composition, molecular, nano and micro structures are affected by a variety of pretreatments that are applied to biomass samples during its conversion into biofuels and chemicals, and how these modifications correlate with the enzymatic digestibility. (AU)