System and method for treating biomass

Abstract

A system (A) for treating a biomass, comprising: a pressurized hot water reaction unit (1) whereby, using pressurized hot water, the biomass is hydrolyzed under first reaction conditions for degrading hemicellulose to give a first polysaccharide solution containing xylooligosaccharides, and then said biomass is hydrolyzed under second reaction conditions for degrading cellulose to give a second polysaccharide solution containing cellooligosaccharides; a first catalytic reaction unit (2) whereby the first polysaccharide solution flowing out from the pressurized hot water reaction unit (1) is hydrolyzed using a solid acid catalyst to give a first monosaccharide solution containing xylose; and a second catalytic reaction unit (3) whereby the second polysaccharide solution flowing out from the pressurized hot water reaction unit (1) is hydrolyzed using a solid acid catalyst to give a second monosaccharide solution containing glucose

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to a biomass treatment device and method. [0002] This application claims priority based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2009-219362 filed in Japan on September 24, 2009, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. Background technique [0003] In recent years, biomass has attracted attention as a carbon-neutral resource instead of fossil resources such as petroleum. As one of the applications of such biomass, a technique of producing glucose (monosaccharides) by saccharifying cellulose-containing biomass and alcohol-fermenting the glucose to produce bioethanol is known. [0004] As a method for producing glucose from biomass (saccharification technology), a method of adding sulfuric acid to biomass for hydrolysis (dilute sulfuric acid method, concentrated sulfuric acid method, etc.) is generally known. However, this method has problems such as corrosion of the reactor, need for waste liquid treatment, and th...

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Problems solved by technology

However, the technology of this patent document 2 has the problem that the temperature of the pressurized hot water is set only with cellulose as the object of saccharification, without any consideration for saccharification of hemicellulose, and further improvement in sugar yield cannot be achieved.

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