초록
Birch wood was pretreated with N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO or NMO) followed by enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation to ethanol or digestion to biogas. The pretreatments were carried out with NMMO (w<SUB>NMMO</SUB> = 85%) at 130 <SUP>o</SUP>C for 3 h, and the effects of drying after the pretreatment were investigated. Enzymatic hydrolysis of the untreated wood resulted in 8%-10% of theoretical glucose yield after 4 days hydrolysis, while the NMMO pretreatment improved this yield to 91%. Consequently, ethanol production yield from NMMO-pretreated materials resulted in around 9-fold improvement compared to the untreated wood. On the other hand, drying of the pretreated wood had a negative impact and decreased the yield of enzymatic hydrolysis by 4%-10%. Digestion of the untreated wood with thermophilic bacteria resulted in maximum methane yield of 158 cm<SUP>3</SUP> g<SUP>-1</SUP> of VS in 30 days, while the NMMO pretreatment improved the methane yield up to 232 cm<SUP>3</SUP> g<SUP>-1</SUP> of VS (80% of the theoretical biogas yield) in just 9 days.