A process for producing a fuel from a softwood. A feedstock containing softwood is pretreated, where the pretreating includes heating the feedstock in a pretreatment liquor containing sulfur dioxide and bisulfite salt. The heating is conducted between 110° C. and 160° C. The pretreatment liquor has a sulfur dioxide concentration that is greater than 6.5 wt % on liquor and a pH at 25° C. that is less than 1.3. The cellulose in the pretreated material is hydrolysed to glucose. The glucose may be fermented to a fermentation product such as ethanol.

The invention relates to a method for the simultaneous production of a solid transformation product of the substrate and crude ethanol comprising the following steps: •preparing a substrate from milled or flaked biomass comprising proteinaceous matter which originates from soya bean, rape seed, or mixtures thereof, optionally in further mixture with proteinaceous matter originating from fava beans, peas, sunflower seeds, lupine, cereals, and/or grasses, •mixing said substrate with live yeast in a dry matter ratio of from 1:1 to 10,000:1 and adding water in an amount which provides a ratio of wet bulk density to dry bulk density from 0.60 to 1.45 in the resulting mixture; •incubating said mixture for 1-48 hours at a temperature of about 20-60° C.; and •separating crude ethanol and wet solid transformation product from said mixture; further comprising that the incubation is performed as a continuous plug-flow process in a vertical, non-agitated, closed incubation tank with inlet means for said mixture and additives and outlet means for the solid transformation product and crude ethanol. The invention further relates to the products of this method as well as uses thereof.

The present invention relates to enzyme compositions and processes of producing and using the compositions for the saccharification of lignocellulosic material.

It is disclosed a process for producing a bio-product from a ligno-cellulosic biomass, wherein the ligno-cellulosic biomass, a gas and steam are introduced in a pressurized reactor operated in a continuous manner at conditions to have a vapor head space. In the pressurized reactor, the vapor head space is maintained at a vapor head space temperature and at a pressure which is at least 1 bar greater than a pure steam equilibrium pressure at the vapor head space temperature. The ligno-cellulosic biomass is then refined by rapidly releasing the pressure while discharging the ligno-cellulosic biomass from the pressurized reactor assembly to create a pre-treated ligno-cellulosic biomass, which is then hydrolyzed and converted to the bio-product. Preferably, at least a portion of the gas is air entrapped in the ligno-cellulosic biomass and it is introduced into the pressurized reactor as part of the ligno-cellulosic biomass. In a preferred embodiment, the lignocellulosic biomass is subjected to a soaking step and an aeration step prior to being introduced into the pressurized reactor, without any xylans separation step.

The invention relates, in general, to methods of processing Lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugars and to methods that rely on hydrothermal pretreatment. Xylose monomer yields comparable to those achieved using two-stage pretreatments can be achieved from soft Lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks by pretreasting to very low severity in a single-stage pressurized hydrothermal pretreatment, followed by enzymatic hydrolysis to release xylose retained in the solid state. In some embodiments, pretreated biomass is separated into a solid fraction and a liquid fraction, the solid fraction subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis, and the separated liquid fraction subsequently mixed with the hydrolysed solid fraction.

Related to is a system for preparing xylose liquid by continuously hydrolyzing hemicellulose, including a neutralizing unit, an acid-adjusting unit, a feeding unit, a liquefaction ejecting unit, a feed and discharge heat-exchanging unit and a discharge controlling unit. The neutralizing unit includes a raw material tank, a neutralizing concentrated sulfuric acid pump and a neutralizing pipeline mixer, the acid-adjusting unit includes an acid-adjusting concentrated sulfuric acid pump, an acid-adjusting pipeline mixer and an acid-adjusting tank, the feeding unit includes a feed tank, the liquefaction ejecting unit includes a liquefaction ejector and a liquefaction maintainer, the feed and discharge heat-exchanging unit includes a plate-type teed and discharge heat exchanger and a first discharge temperature sensor, and the discharge controlling unit includes a discharge valve and a reflux valve. The obtained xylose liquid exchanges heat with the hemicellulose liquid in the plate-type feed and discharge heat exchanger to decrease a temperature of the xylose liquid, whereas a temperature of the hemicellulose liquid is increased. Further disclosed is a method using the system. The simultaneous feed and discharge heat exchanges greatly reduce energy consumption, and feed and exchange are continuously run, thereby improving the production efficiency and simplifying manual operations.

A method for processing biomass digestate is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of—providing a biomass digestate (BD), —subjecting the biomass digestate to a separation step (SEP) into a liquid fraction (LF) and a solid biomass digestate fraction (SBD), —subjecting the solid biomass digestate fraction (SBD) to an acidic wash step (AW) at a pressure below 200 kPa (2 bar) to obtain a washed biomass digestate (WBD), —separating (SEP) the washed biomass digestate (WBD) into a liquid wash fraction (LW) and a solid wash fraction (SW), —posttreating (POST) the solid wash fraction (SW) to obtain a posttreated solid wash fraction (PSW) and—anaerobic digesting (AD) the posttreated solid wash fraction (PSW) to obtain a posttreated biomass digestate (PBD) wherein the amount of phosphorus in the solid wash fraction (SW) is reduced compared to amount of phosphorus in the solid biomass digestate fraction (SBD).

Process and systems are provided for anaerobic digestion of lignocellulosic feedstock into biogas and co-products, such as fibrous humid cake and a fine-particles slurry. The feedstock (e.g., grass straw) is typically first ground or milled. The feedstock is subjected to pelletizing or extruding to generate pellets (e.g., cubes) or extrudates. The pellets or extrudates may be fed to a hydrolysis unit or a digester, in dry form or wet form. Various chemicals may be added to improve the mechanical disintegration of the lignocellulosic structure of the feedstock, before, during, or after formation of pellets or extrudates. The biogas may be stored, sold, used, or further treated, such as via purification to produce pipeline-quality cellulosic methane. The fibrous humid cake and the fine-solids slurry have many potential uses. Other potential co-products include lignin, biochar, energy (as heat and/or electricity), fertilizers, soil or land conditioners, ammonium sulfate, ammonium hydroxide, and carbon dioxide.

A process and apparatus for the enzymatic degradation of a cellulosic substrate is disclosed. The process comprises agitating a composition with milling particles, wherein the milling particles are or comprise a lignocellulosic material and wherein the composition comprises: a. the cellulosic substrate; b. a cellulase enzyme; and c. a liquid medium.

The invention relates to a method for producing a sugar syrup comprising fermentable sugars from lignocellulosic biomass containing paper waste, in particular printable paper, printed paper or cardboard, said method comprising the following steps: a. optionally, a step of shredding said lignocellulosic biomass containing paper waste; b.i. a step of impregnating said lignocellulosic biomass containing paper waste or shredded lignocellulosic biomass obtained on completion of step a. in an aqueous medium, and ii. a thermal pretreatment step implemented, without the addition of acid, at a temperature of between 80° C. and 150° C., at a pH between 6.5 and 8.5, in particular between 6.5 and 8, in order to obtain a pretreated product, said impregnation and thermal pretreatment steps being carried out simultaneously or successively according to i. and then ii; c. a step of enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated product obtained on completion of step b. in order to convert the cellulose and hemicellulose into a sugar syrup comprising fermentable sugars; and d. a step of recovering the sugar syrup comprising fermentable sugars obtained on completion of step c.