Good lignins naturally occurred in the plant cell wall

Good lignins naturally occurred in the plant cell wall

3^rd Annual Congress on Plant Biology & Agricultural Sciences
April 04, 2022 | Webinar

Mingjie Chen

Guangdong Academy of Sciences, China

Abstract:

Lignin is one of the three major components of plant cell wall biomass, accounting for 10-35wt% of the dried mass. Current interests are genetically regulating the lignification process to address the structural complexity of lignin which is the key obstacle converting lignin into valuable products. A knowledge of what makes good lignin and which plant produces such good lignin will lead the genetical effort to successfully producing lignin ready for conversions. Therefore, structural studies of lignins from sixteen biomass were performed by NMR and analytical degrative techniques. Also, phenolic monomers of in situ depolymerization of these lignins by hydrogenolysis were determined to address the “good lignin” motifs. Softwood lignin produces the lowest yield of monomers although only guaiacyl derivatives are generated, which favors the downstream isolation of valuable products. Herbaceous lignins, known to be less recalcitrant to bioethanol production, however, generate a highly diverse monomers with a medium total monomers yield. Wild-type hardwood lignins, of syringyl/ guaiacyl copolymer, produce high monomers yields with that of the aspen lignin being the highest (56.1wt%), which composes of 71.4/68.6 syringyl/ guaiacyl units with a 4.0% p-hydroxy-benzoates. A further monomer yield of 75.5wt% was obtained from high syringyl trans-genetic poplar lignin with 97.6% syringyl units and 3.1% p-hydroxy-benzoates. Those results evidentiate the conclusion that sinapyl alcohol p-hydroxy-benzoates is a good lignin monomer that favors lignin conversion, and the Salicaceae family are naturally producing such lignin in a medium level. The result of this study provides knowledges in guiding the biomass selection and engineering for efficient production of valuable chemicals from lignin.

Biography:

Mingjie Chen is currently a staff scientist at Institute of Microbiology, Guangdong Academy of Sciences where he performs research on biochemical, bioenergy and bio-based materials. Mingjie completed both B.S. and Ph.D. degrees of Pulp and Paper Science at the state key laboratory State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering, South China University of Technology, postdoc training at Wisconsin Energy Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison under the supervisions of Prof. Troy Runge and Prof. John Ralph, respectively. Mingjie applies his background in lignocellulose chemist to address questions about several aspects of bioenergy and bio-based materials production with an emphasis on biomass composition, fractionation technologies, and lignin chemistry.

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