Effects of Colloid Milling and Hot-Water Pretreatment on Physical Properties and Enzymatic Digestibility of Oak Wood

Abstract

A two‐step process using colloid milling (CM) and hot water (HW) treatment was evaluated for its ability to improve xylose recovery and the enzymatic digestibility of oak wood. In the first step, CM pretreatment was applied at a milling (feeding) speed of 100 mL/min with four different milling times (3, 6, 9, and 12 h), and the enzymatic digestibility and physical properties of each substrate were measured. In the second‐step, the HW pretreatment was applied to enhance the enzymatic digestibility and xylan recovery at various reaction severities (Log R0) from 2.07 to 4.43 using 12 h colloid‐milled (CM‐treated) oak wood. Compared with untreated oak wood, CM not only significantly disrupted the structure of oak wood but also increased its Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area (42‐fold) and pore volume (28‐fold). The crystallinity of two‐step‐treated oak wood was decreased to 34.8, while the enzymatic digestibility of 12 h CM‐treated oak wood was increased to 58.1% at enzyme loading of 30 filter paper units (FPU)/g glucan for 96 h. After HW treatment of CM‐treated oak wood at Log R0 = 3.83, 80.7% of xylan recovery yield and 91.1% of enzymatic digestibility (with 15 FPU/g glucan at 96 h) was obtained, which was 84.2% higher than the enzymatic digestibility of untreated oak wood (6.9%). © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.