Babu Fathepure
Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass using Microorganisms and Hydrothermolysis for Efficient Production of Biofuel and Chemicals
2024-2025 USDA-NIFA Limited Competitive Research Support Award
Principal Investigators and Affiliations:
PI: Dr. Babu Fathepure, Oklahoma State University
Graduate Student: Oluwatobi Quadri
Funded: $89,600
Start Date: 10/1/2024
End Date: 6/30/2025
Project Goal
The main goal of this project is to develop a hybrid pretreatment platform for efficient saccharification of plant polysaccharides to produce biofuels and bio-based products.
Objectives
- 1Study lignin degradation in switchgrass using a synergistic mixture of bacteria and fungi and optimize conditions to maximize delignification.
- Conduct metabolomic profiling of switchgrass hydrolysate to identify key compounds.
- Evaluate and optimize the hydrothermal process, following microbial pretreatment, to enhance saccharification outcomes.
Expected Project Outcomes
The project team envisioned to develop efficient hybrid biological hydrothermal pretreatment methods that reduce treatment time and enhance biomass conversion efficiency with a goal to achieve 40 to 60 g/L sugar yield after enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated switchgrass. Other project outcomes are (i) understanding the interactions of microorganisms; synergistic or antagonistic? (ii) reducing time for microbial pretreatment and lower levels of toxic inhibitors (iii) knowledge of major lignin metabolites, (iv) improved knowledge of the hybrid pretreatment strategy, (v) training of graduate and undergraduate students for tomorrow’s workforce development, and (vi) more importantly, the knowledge gained from our studies can be adapted for treating other types of plant biomass.