Japanese researchers use microbubbles to pre-treat biomass

In Japan, a team of researchers from Tohoku University has developed a new method for the pretreatment of organic material, or “biomass”, which could lead to more efficient production of biofuels and biochemicals.

The new method involves crushing the leaves and stalks of maize plants and placing the resulting powder in a solution of sodium percarbonate (SP). The product is then passed through a “hydrodynamic (HD) cavitation system”. When it passes through a constriction in the system, bubbles form and then collapse due to a pressure change after the constriction. This “cavitation” – the formation, growth and subsequent collapse of microbubbles – produces high, localized energy that disintegrates the cellulose fibres in the biomass.

The team previously developed a pretreatment system that involves applying ultrasonic (US) energy to an SP-treated biomass solution. This also results in cavitation and improved disintegration of cellulose fibres. In their study, published in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, they compared the efficiency of pretreating biomass with HD-SP and US-SP systems.