U.S.-China Collaboration:Exploring Assessment of 3D nanostructure and topochemical distributions of lignocellulosic biomass and their impact on biomass pretreatment

生物质是制造可再生能源、可持续化学品和可生物降解材料的重要资源。然而，生物质的顽固性是生物燃料广泛应用的根本障碍。预处理有助于溶解一些成分，虽然它们显著提高生物质反应性，但发生这种情况的原因或机制尚不清楚。这项工作的主要目的是检查拓扑化学和纳米？细胞壁的结构方面及其对随后的酶解或预处理反应的影响，通过应用各种前沿的地形和化学分辨技术。这将显示细胞壁解构的基本机制，并导致有效的生物质转化。对化学反应的拓扑化学的理解将使这些方法得到改进，并推荐新的、更有效的预处理方法。这是一项合作工作，将有助于培养生物资源行业的科学家和工程师。新型显微技术与生物质预处理相结合的应用将涵盖广泛的工程和科学学科以及学术机构，并有助于促进跨学科研究，从而在国际教育和知识传播方面产生更广泛的影响。由于木片在纸浆和造纸中的广泛流行和使用，因此将使用木片作为本初步研究的模型。三维纳米结构和拓扑化学分布的探索将使用TEM成像、高级计算机断层扫描、拉曼光谱和免疫分析进行，如下所示：1)利用纳米粒子标记和透射电镜（TEM）来确定孔结构（SUNY）； 2)利用透射电镜和先进的计算工具（UMN）对三维纳米结构进行数字化可视化和表征；3)利用功能化探针和透射电镜（TEM）对细胞壁内空间化学分布进行相关成像的AFM；4)利用拉曼光谱获得木质素在细胞壁内的分布（与北京林业大学合作）。获得两种样品的细胞壁三维纳米孔结构、孔隙率和孔径分布的变化及其对生物质预处理和细胞壁组分空间分布的影响。该奖项支持三名美国调查人员和两名美国学生前往中国开展这项合作。

Biomass is an important resource for the manufacture of renewable energy, sustainable chemicals and biodegradable materials. However, the recalcitrance of biomass is a fundamental barrier to the widespread application for biofuels. Pretreatments serve to solubilize some of the components and although they significantly enhance biomass reactivity, the causes or mechanisms by which this occurs are not known. The principal objective of this work is to examine the topochemical and nano?]structural aspects of cell walls and their impact on subsequent enzymolysis or pretreatment reactions, by applying a variety of leading edge topographic and chemical resolution techniques. This will show the fundamental mechanisms of cell wall deconstruction and lead to effective biomass conversions. The understanding of the topochemistry of the chemical reactions will enable enhancements of these methods and recommendations of novel, more efficient pretreatment methods. This is a collaborative work and will help educate scientists and engineers for the bioresource industry. The application of novel microscopic techniques in concert with biomass pretreatment will cover a wide range of engineering and scientific disciplines and academic institutions and help foster interdisciplinary research leading to broader impacts in education and dissemination of knowledge internationally.Wood chips will be used as models for this preliminary study on account of their wide prevalence and use in pulp and paper. Explorations of the 3D nanostructure and topochemical distributions will be performed using TEM imaging, advanced computed tomography, Raman spectroscopy, and immunoassays as follows: 1) Recently developed immunochemical labels with nanoparticle tags and TEM to determine pore structure (SUNY), 2) 3D nanostructure digitally visualized and characterized using TEM and advanced computational tools (UMN), 3) AFM with functionalized probes coupled with the TEM for correlative imaging of the spatial chemical distributions within cell walls (UMN), 4) Raman spectroscopy will be applied to obtain lignin distributions inside the cell walls (in collaboration with Beijing Forestry University, China). The changes in the three dimensional nanoporous structure of the cell wall, porosity and pore size distributions and their impact on biomass pretreatment and the spatial distribution of the cell wall components will be obtained for two samples. This award supports three U.S. investigators and two U.S. students for travel to China to initiate this collaboration.