Abstract Physicochemical characteristics of corn stover pretreated by soaking in aqueous ammonia (SAA) and low-moisture anhydrous ammonia (LMAA) were compared and investigated. The glucan digestibility of the treated biomass reached 90 % (SAA) and 84 % (LMAA). The LMAA pretreatment enhanced the digestibility by cleaving cross-linkages between cell wall components, whereas the SAA pretreatment additionally improved the digestibility by efficiently removing a major portion of the lignin under mild reaction conditions without significant loss of carbohydrates. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and gel permeation chromatography (GPC) revealed the structural and chemical transformations of lignin during the pretreatments. Both pretreatments effectively cleaved ferulate cell wall cross-linking that is associated with the recalcitrance of grass lignocellulosics toward enzymatic saccharification. Extracted lignin from SAA pretreatment was extensively depolymerized but retained “native” character, as evidenced by the retention of β-ether linkages.
Abstract Lignin is an abundant polymer in plant secondary cell walls. Prototypical lignins derive from the polymerization of monolignols (hydroxycinnamyl alcohols), mainly coniferyl and sinapyl alcohol, via combinatorial radical coupling reactions and primarily via the endwise coupling of a monomer with the phenolic end of the growing polymer. Hydroxycinnamaldehyde units have long been recognized as minor components of lignins. In plants deficient in cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase, the last enzyme in the monolignol biosynthesis pathway that reduces hydroxycinnamaldehydes to monolignols, chain-incorporated aldehyde unit levels are elevated. The nature and relative levels of aldehyde components in lignins can be determined from their distinct and dispersed correlations in 2D 1H–13C-correlated nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra. We recently became aware of aldehyde NMR peaks, well resolved from others, that had been overlooked. NMR of isolated low-molecular-weight oligomers from biomimetic radical coupling reactions involving coniferaldehyde revealed that the correlation peaks belonged to hydroxycinnamaldehyde-derived benzofuran moieties. Coniferaldehyde 8-5-coupling initially produces the expected phenylcoumaran structures, but the derived phenolic radicals undergo preferential disproportionation rather than radical coupling to extend the growing polymer. As a result, the hydroxycinnamaldehyde-derived phenylcoumaran units are difficult to detect in lignins, but the benzofurans are now readily observed by their distinct and dispersed correlations in the aldehyde region of NMR spectra from any lignin or monolignol dehydrogenation polymer. Hydroxycinnamaldehydes that are coupled to coniferaldehyde can be distinguished from those coupled with a generic guaiacyl end-unit. These benzofuran peaks may now be annotated and reported and their structural ramifications further studied.
Dehydrodimerization of ferulates in grass cell walls provides a pathway toward cross-linking polysaccharide chains limiting the digestibility of carbohydrates by ruminant bacteria and in general affecting the utilization of grass as a renewable bioresource. Analysis of dehydrodiferulates (henceforth termed diferulates) in plant cell walls is useful in the evaluation of the quality of dairy forages as animal feeds. Therefore, there has been considerable demand for quantities of diferulates as standards for such analyses. Described here are syntheses of diferulates from ethyl ferulate via biomimetic radical coupling reactions using the copper(II)-tetramethylethylenediamine [CuCl(OH)-TMEDA] complex as oxidant or catalyst. Although CuCl(OH)-TMEDA oxidation of ethyl ferulate in acetonitrile produced mixtures composed of 8-O-4-, 8-5-, 8-8- (cyclic and noncyclic), and 5-5-coupled diferulates, a catalyzed oxidation using CuCl(OH)-TMEDA as catalyst and oxygen as an oxidant resulted in better overall yields of such diferulates. Flash chromatographic fractionation allowed isolation of 8-8- and 5-5-coupled diferulates. 8-5-Diferulate coeluted with 8-O-4-diferulate but was separated from it via crystallization; the 8-O-4 diferulate left in the mother solution was isolated by rechromatography following a simple tetrabutylammonium fluoride treatment that converted 8-5-diferulate to another useful diferulate, 8-5-(noncyclic) diferulate. Therefore, six of the nine (5-5, 8-O-4, 8-5-c, 8-5-nc, 8-5-dc, 8-8-c, 8-8-nc, 8-8-THF, 4-O-5) diferulic acids that have to date been found in the alkaline hydrolysates of plant cell walls can be readily synthesized by the CuCl(OH)-TMEDA catalyzed aerobic oxidative coupling reaction and subsequent saponification described here.
Fast aqueous/organic hydrogenations of arenes, olefins and carbonyl compounds were successfully achieved using an amphiphilic PVP-Ru catalyst. Thus, RuCl3·H2O was treated with PVP in H2O to give a solution of PVP-Ru(III). This solution was treated with H2 to afford the aqueous solution of PVP-Ru 1 (eq. 1). It showed good catalytic activity for hydrogenation of arenes (eq. 2), olefins (eq. 3) and carbonyl compounds (eqs. 4 and 5). All the hydrogenation TOFs exceeded 1,000 h-1. It is noted that the hydrogenation TOF of benzene reached 45,000 h-1. Furthermore, no leaching of Ru was observed by ICP analysis, and PVP-Ru solution 1 can be reused three times without significant loss of catalytic activity.
(E)-Isomers of coniferyl and sinapyl alcohols were readily and cleanly prepared in excellent yields from commercially available coniferaldehyde and sinapaldehyde by sodium triacetoxyborohydride reduction in ethyl acetate. No 1,4-reduction products, always produced in prior methods, could be detected. Keywords: Coniferyl alcohol; sinapyl alcohol; monolignol; lignin; triacetoxyborohydride; dihydroconiferyl alcohol; coniferaldehyde; sinapaldehyde; regiospecific reduction
Down-regulation of the gene encoding 4-coumarate 3-hydroxylase (C3H) in alfalfa massively but predictably increased the proportion of p-hydroxyphenyl (P) units relative to the normally dominant guaiacyl (G) and syringyl (S) units. Stem levels of up to approximately 65% P (from wild-type levels of approximately 1%) resulting from down-regulation of C3H were measured by traditional degradative analyses as well as two-dimensional 13C-1H correlative NMR methods. Such levels put these transgenics well beyond the P:G:S compositional bounds of normal plants; p-hydroxyphenyl levels are reported to reach a maximum of 30% in gymnosperm severe compression wood zones but are limited to a few percent in dicots. NMR also revealed structural differences in the interunit linkage distribution that characterizes a lignin polymer. Lower levels of key beta-aryl ether units were relatively augmented by higher levels of phenylcoumarans and resinols. The C3H-deficient alfalfa lignins were devoid of beta-1 coupling products, highlighting the significant differences in the reaction course for p-coumaryl alcohol versus the two normally dominant monolignols, coniferyl and sinapyl alcohols. A larger range of dibenzodioxocin structures was evident in conjunction with an approximate doubling of their proportion. The nature of each of the structural units was revealed by long range 13C-1H correlation experiments. For example, although beta-ethers resulted from the coupling of all three monolignols with the growing polymer, phenylcoumarans were formed almost solely from coupling reactions involving p-coumaryl alcohol; they resulted from both coniferyl and sinapyl alcohol in the wild-type plants. Such structural differences form a basis for explaining differences in digestibility and pulping performance of C3H-deficient plants.
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