On the conflicting findings of Role of Cellulose-Crystallinity in Enzume Hydrolysis of Biomass

Of the various feedstocks for cellulose bioethanol, wood appears to be an excellent energy source because it requires relatively less energy to grow and process. The exact chemical composition is wood-species specific and plays an important role in determining the material properties. In the context of hydrolyzing the cellulose component, a number of substrate factors other than enzymes are thought to be important. Based on prior research, 3-9 crystallinity and degree of polymerization of cellulose, amounts of lignin and hemicellulose, interactions between lignin, hemicellulose, and cellulose, pore volume, and the cell wall surface area are all important considerations. However, the research findings on some of these topics have not always been unambiguous. For instance, crystallinity was found to be more important than the sample surface area 4 in pure cellulose samples. As an example, based on our work, enzyme hydrolysis data of varying-crystallinity Whatman CC31 samples is shown in Fig. 1.