Tobacco biomass as a source of advanced biofuels

ABSTRACT

Tobacco plants can be developed as an energy crop for biofuels production. Tobacco represents a well-established non-food crop with an over 400-year tradition of cultivation in the United States. It is the most popular non-food crop in the world, grown in more than 120 other countries. Energy tobacco as a platform biomass for biofuels, combined with a water-based green-process technology to produce fermentable sugars from tobacco plants or tobacco stalks, was the aim of this study. The composition analysis showed that non-structural sugars in modified or unmodified tobacco leaves are comparable to those of energy crops (switch grass, miscanthus), whereas lignin content in tobacco leaves is significantly lower. Moreover, the elemental analysis of tobacco leaves showed that the carbon content is in the range of 37–39 wt% on a dry basis, and oil content was about 5 wt%. Upon hydrolysis, more than 75 wt% of structural or non-structural sugars in tobacco biomass was available as glucose. The results showed that tobacco cellulose could be effectively converted to hydrolytic products (glucose, cellobiose and oligosaccharides) within a few seconds under hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) conditions. There are some parameters that are crucial for a successful HTL reaction, such as residence time, temperature, pressure and the particle size of the biomass.

KEYWORDS:

• Energy tobacco
• hydrothermal liquefaction
• biofuels
• oil seeds
• green coal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.