Influence of steam explosion on physico-chemical properties and hydrolysis rate of pure cellulose fibers

The aim of the present study is to compare the effect of different steam explosion treatments on physicochemical properties and hydrolysis rate of a pure bleached cellulose.
The results showed that moderate steam explosion treatments (severity factor below 5.2) did not improve the enzymatic hydrolysis rate of the cellulose fibers. The characterization of the obtained samples showed an increase of the cellulose accessibility coupled with an increase of the overall crystallinity of the substrate. In these conditions, the higher accessibility is counterbalanced by the increased crystallinity. Indeed, a greater proportion of the substrat is accessible by only a fraction of the enzymatic complex (exo-glucanases) activities.
When the severity factor reached 5.2, a decrease of the cellulose enzymatic hydrolysis rate was observed. In this case, TGA analysis showed an increase of the char level at the end of the pyrolysis which traduced an important thermal degradation of the samples. The thermal degradation of cellulose lead to an important change in substrate composition, which induced a decrease of the cellulose ratio available for hydrolysis and caused a decrease of the hydrolysis yields.