Ammonia Fiber Expansion (AFEX) Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic BiomassShishir P. S. Chundawat 1, Ramendra K. Pal 1, Chao Zhao 1, Timothy Campbell 2, Farzaneh Teymouri 2, Josh Videto 2, Chandra Nielson 2, Bradley Wieferich 3, Leonardo Sousa 3, Bruce E. Dale 3, Venkatesh Balan 4, Sarvada Chipkar 5, Jacob Aguado 5, Emily Burke 5, Rebecca G. Ong 5
1Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Rutgers-State University of New Jersey, 2Michigan Biotechnology Institute (MBI), 3Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University, 4Engineering Technology Department, Biotechnology Program, College of Technology, University of Houston, 5Department of Chemical Engineering, Michigan Technological University
Ammonia fiber expansion (AFEX) is a thermochemical pretreatment technology that can convert lignocellulosic biomass (e.g., corn stover, rice straw, and sugarcane bagasse) into a highly digestible feedstock for both biofuels and animal feed applications. Here, we describe a laboratory-scale method for conducting AFEX pretreatment on lignocellulosic biomass.