The plant cell wall is an intricate hierarchical structure that is primarily composed of the biopolymers, cellulose, lignin and hemicellulose. Understanding how the plant cell wall is assembled and also the changes that occur when it is deconstructed to produce fuels and chemicals is of critical importance for the development of a sustainable bioenergy economy. Although there has been significant progress towards these goals, the molecular level interactions between the component biomass polymers is poorly understood. Neutron scattering has emerged as a versatile tool to investigate the structure and dynamics of biomass and related model materials to obtain information that is unattainable by other means. We will discuss how the mesoscale organization of the plant cell walls is influenced by lignin content and composition and how these differences affect sugar release during thermochemical pretreatment. The neutron scattering cross-sections of hydrogen and deuterium are very different making it possible to selectively highlight different components within a complex system. A deuterated bacterial cellulose was produced as a model material to investigate different aspects of biomass structure and dynamics that are relevant to biomass deconstruction including cellulose-hemicellulose interactions and water-cellulose dynamics, potentially leading to more efficient pretreatment approaches. These examples will demonstrate how the combination of neutron scattering with biodeuteration can enhance our knowledge of the plant cell wall structure and the underlying processes that occur that change biomass morphology during thermochemical pretreatment for biofuels production.

Insights into biomass deconstruction using deuterium-labeling and neutron scattering

ACS Spring 2022

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