Abstract
The microalgae have cellulose as a main structural component of their cell wall and the lignin content in microalgae is much lower than other lignocellulosic biomass. Therefore, fermentable sugar production from microalgae (Tetraselmis KCTC 12236BP) can be carried out under pretreatment without high temperature and high pressure. It was investigated that the effect of hot-water pretreatment using sulfuric acid for lipid extracted algae which is expected to be a next generation biomass. The effects of three major variables including extraction temperature, acid concentration and time on the enzymatic hydrolysis were investigated. Among the tested variables, temperature and acid concentration showed significant effects and optimum pretreatment conditions for the economic operation criteria were obtained as follows: reaction temperature of $120^{\circ}C$, sulfuric acid concentration of 2 mol and pretreatment time of 40 min. Under the optimum conditions of acidic hot water pretreatment, experimentally obtained hydrolysis yield were 95.9% which showed about 2.1 fold higher compared with enzymatic hydrolysis process. Therefore, acid pretreatment under mild condition was proven to be an effective method for fermentable sugar production from lipid extracted microalgae.
미세조류 세포벽은 셀룰로오스가 주요 구성성분으로 리그닌을 포함하지 않아 낮은 온도의 전처리 조건에서도 효과적으로 셀룰로오스와 헤미셀룰로오스 분해가 가능하다. 차세대 바이오매스로 주목 받는 미세조류(Tetraselmis KCTC 12236BP)로부터 $120^{\circ}C$ 이하의 낮은 온도 조건에서 열수전처리를 이용한 발효당 생산 증대를 위해 공정조건을 최적화하였다. 주요 공정조건인 추출온도, 황산농도와 추출시간에 따른 당화율 변화를 확인하였을 때, 온도와 황산농도가 글루코오스 생산에 큰 영향을 컸으며 당화율이 비례하여 증가하는 경향을 보였다. 경제성을 고려한 열수전처리 최적조건은 $120^{\circ}C$, 2 mol 황산, 40분으로 95.9%의 당화율을 얻을 수 있었다. 탈지미세조류의 황산 열수전처리와 효소당화를 비교했을 때, 황산 열수전처리의 당화율이 2.1배 이상 높고 전처리 시간이 짧아 황산 열수전처리가 효소당화에 비해 효과적인 공정임을 확인하였다.