TY - JOUR
T1 - The Mechanisms of Plant Cell Wall Deconstruction during Enzymatic Hydrolysis
AU - Thygesen, Lisbeth Garbrecht
AU - Thybring, Emil Engelund
AU - Johansen, Katja Salomon
AU - Felby, Claus
PY - 2014/9/18
Y1 - 2014/9/18
N2 - Mechanical agitation during enzymatic hydrolysis of insoluble plant biomass at high dry matter contents is indispensable for the initial liquefaction step in biorefining. It is known that particle size reduction is an important part of liquefaction, but the mechanisms involved are poorly understood. Here we put forward a simple model based on mechanical principles capable of capturing the result of the interaction between mechanical forces and cell wall weakening via hydrolysis of glucosidic bonds. This study illustrates that basic material science insights are relevant also within biochemistry, particularly when it comes to up-scaling of processes based on insoluble feed stocks.
AB - Mechanical agitation during enzymatic hydrolysis of insoluble plant biomass at high dry matter contents is indispensable for the initial liquefaction step in biorefining. It is known that particle size reduction is an important part of liquefaction, but the mechanisms involved are poorly understood. Here we put forward a simple model based on mechanical principles capable of capturing the result of the interaction between mechanical forces and cell wall weakening via hydrolysis of glucosidic bonds. This study illustrates that basic material science insights are relevant also within biochemistry, particularly when it comes to up-scaling of processes based on insoluble feed stocks.
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0108313
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0108313
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 25232741
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 9
SP - 1
EP - 4
JO - PLoS Computational Biology
JF - PLoS Computational Biology
IS - 9
ER -