Coupling biomass pretreatment for enzymatic hydrolysis and direct biomass-to-electricity conversion with molybdovanadophosphoric heteropolyacids as anode electron transfer carriers

Owing to their acidity,oxidizing ability and redox reversibility,molybdovanadophosphoric heteropolyacids(H_(n+3)PMo_(12-n)VnO40,abbreviated as PMo_(12-n)Vn) were employed as electron transfer carriers for coupling biomass pretreatment for enzymatic hydrolysis and direct biomass-to-electricity conversion.In this novel coupled process,PMo_(12-n)Vn pretreatment that causes deconstruction of cell wall structure with PMo_(12-n)Vn being simultaneously reduced can be considered as the "charging" process.The reduced PMo_(12-n)Vn are further re-oxidized with release of electrons in a liquid flow fuel cell(LFFC) to generate electricity is the "discharging" process.Several Keggin-type PMo_(12-n)Vn with different degree of vanadium substitution(DSV, namely n) were prepared.Compared to Keggin-type phosphomolybdic acid(PMo_(12)),PMo_(12-n)Vn(n=1-6) showed higher oxidizing ability but poorer redox reversibility.The cellulose enzymatic digestibility of PMo_(12-n)Vn pretreated wheat straw generally decreased with increase in DSV, but xylan enzymatic digestibility generally increased with DSV.PMo_(12) pretreatment of wheat straw at 120℃ obtained the highest enzymatic glucan conversion(EGC) reaching 95%,followed by PMo11V1 pretreatment(85%).Discharging of the reduced heteropolyacids in LFFC showed that vanadium substitution could improve the maximum output power density(Pmax).The highest Pmax was obtained by PMo9 V3(44.7 mW/cm^(2)) when FeCl_(3) was used as a cathode electron carrier,while PMo_(12) achieved the lowest Pmax(27.4 mW/cm^(2)).All the heteropolyacids showed good electrode Faraday efficiency(>95%) and cell discharging efficiency(>93%).The energy efficiency of the coupled process based on the heat values of the products and generated electric energy was in the range of 18%-25% depending on DSV.PMo_(12) and PMo11V1 seem to be the most suitable heteropolyacids to mediate the coupled process.