Improving alkaline-oxidative pretreatment in hardwoods BRC Science Highlight Improving alkaline-oxidative pretreatment in hardwoods A Objective To improve alkaline hydrogen peroxide (AHP) pretreatment of woody biomass via transition metals. Approach Four different hardwoods were treated via AHP pretreatment: silver birch, hybrid aspen, hybrid poplar, and sugar maple. After enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated hardwoods, the results were correlated to various cell wall properties. B Result/Impacts Enzymatic hydrolysis yields increased with increased naturally- occurring transition metals (Cu, Fe, Mn) (Fig. A) or by the addition of a transition metal catalyst [Cu(bpy)] (Fig. B). Glycome profiles showed improved extractability of xylan, xyloglucan, and pectin epitopes with increased hydrolysis yields for the various woody biomass. Cell wall-associated transition metals can play a positive role in oxidative cell wall deconstruction strategies, and they can also be altered to optimize the outcome of the pretreatment. Notes: text Title again: Text 1-2 sentence summary? Figure A. Correlating metal content with glucose hydrolysis yields of different AHP-treated hardwoods. Figure B. Hydrolysis yields of 4 hardwoods following different pretreatment conditions. Bansal N, Bhalla A, Pattathil S, Adelman SL, Hahn MG, Hodge DB, Hegg EL. “Cell wall-associated transition metals improve alkaline-oxidative pretreatment in diverse hardwoods”. Green Chemistry (2016) [DOI: 10.1039/c5gc01748c] GLBRC May 2016