Hodge Research Group Chemical Engineering & Materials Science Biosystems & Agricultural Engineering
HOME RESEARCH FACILITIES TEACHING PUBLICATIONS CURRICULUM VITAE GROUP LINKS	Research Areas: · Bioprocess optimization · Lignocellulose conversion · Biobased products · Enzyme and microbial catalysis · Kinetics of chemical and biochemical processes Current Research Projects: Fractionation of Alkaline Pretreatment/Pulping Liquors Hemicellulose and lignin biopolymers from alkaline pretreatment liquors have unique properties that allow for separations for the purposes of hydrolyzate detoxification, alkali recovery, or recovery of solubilized biopolymers. For a woody biomass fractionation process, the question can be posed: How do the alkaline pretreatment conditions affect the structure, solution chemistry, MW distribution of the solubilized hemicelluloses and lignins and how can an understanding of these properties be used in separations and process design and how can these be optimally used as feedstocks? For developing an effective integrated processing strategy to address this question, a number of factors need to be considered in tandem, which include understanding how changes in the alkaline pretreatment affect the properties of the biopolymers solubilized, how these properties affect the potential for recovery and separation, how the properties of the recovered component affects its capacity for use as a feedstock in other processes, and how the overall process is positioned in terms of yields, efficiency, and economics. Alkaline and Oxidative Pretreatments (in collaboration with Dr. John Cameron, Western Michigan University) Much of the research around hydrothermal pretreatments for lignocellulose deconstruction has been targeted generally in the acidic range. While the high temperature has been shown to melt and redistribute lignin, condensation reactions and re-precipitation of these lignins onto the surface of cellulose microfibrils has been shown to decrease the maximum achievable cellulose digestibility by hindering the accessibility of cellulose microfibrils to enzymatic attack. This is a critical roadblock for the utilization of lignocellulose carbohydrates at high yields and particularly for the utilization of high-lignin feedstocks such as woody biomass. The focus of this work is to investigate both novel approaches for alkaline oxygen pretreatments, which due to recent research advances have become increasingly feasible and, in contrast to the acid pretreatment, specifically target delignification. The use of alkaline-oxidative conditions as a pretreatment presents unique opportunities for co-products as well as challenges from a process integration viewpoint and is an additional feature of this research project. Enzyme-Assisted Fiber Hydrolysis and Corn Oil Fractionation from DDG The rapid increase in corn ethanol production in recent years has resulted in a simultaneous growth in the volume of co-products from the dry grind process such as distillers dried grains (DDG) which contains the majority of the original protein, oil, and fiber from the corn. The generation of higher value from this co-product, for example by efficient fractionation and recovery of these components, is the goal of this project. Specifically, this work will investigate whether an enzymatic processing step is feasible for simultaneous hydrolysis of corn fiber to fermentable sugars and aqueous corn oil extraction. The effectiveness of this approach will be evaluated based on the extent of fiber conversion, sugar titer, and fraction of recoverable oil by centrifugation. Page updated 12 March, 2009
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