Sugar Yield Comparison of Wheat Straw Processed by Two Pelleting Methods for Cellulosic Biofuel Manufacturing

Biofuels made from cellulosic biomass are an alternative to petroleum-based liquid transportation fuels. However, low density of cellulosic biomass causes high costs in biomass transportation and handling in cellulosic biofuel manufacturing. Such costs can be reduced by pelleting processes that can densify cellulosic biomass. Ultrasonic vibration-assisted (UV-A) pelleting and ring-die pelleting are two pelleting methods. A previous study has compared the two pelleting methods in terms of pellet quality and pelleting power consumption. This paper reports an experimental comparison on sugar yields of wheat straw processed by the two pelleting methods under different combinations of pretreatment variables. Results show that wheat straw processed by UV-A pelleting has higher sugar yield than that processed by ring-die pelleting when the higher temperature and longer time are applied in pretreatment. Under other combinations of pretreatment variables, wheat straw processed by UV-A pelleting has lower sugar yield than that processed by ring-die pelleting.