Composition of structural carbohydrates in biomass: precision of a liquid chromatography method using a neutral detergent extraction and a charged aerosol detector.

We adapted and optimized a method to quantify the cellulose, hemicellulose, xylan, arabinan, mannan, galactan contents in lignocellulosic biomass. This method is based on a neutral detergent extraction (NDE) of the interfering biomass components, followed by a sulfuric acid hydrolysis (SAH) of the structural polysaccharides, and a liquid chromatography with charged aerosol detection (LC-CAD) to analyze the released monosaccharides. The first step of this NDE-SAH-LC-CAD method aims at removing all compounds that interfere with the subsequent sulphuric acid hydrolysis or with the subsequent chromatographic quantification of the cellulosic and hemicellulosic monosaccharides. This step includes starch hydrolysis with an analytical thermostable α-amylase followed by an extraction of soluble compounds by a Van Soest neutral detergent solution (NDE). The aim of this paper was to assess the precision of this method when choosing fiber sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench), tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) and fiber hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) as representative lignocellulosic biomass. The cellulose content of fiber sorghum, tall fescue and fiber hemp determined by the NDE-SAH-LC-CAD method were 28.7 ± 1.0, 29.7 ± 1.0 and 43.6 ± 1.2g/100g dry matter, respectively, and their hemicellulose content were 18.6 ± 0.5, 16.5 ± 0.5 and 14.5 ± 0.2g/100g dry matter, respectively. Cellulose, mannan and galactan contents were higher in fiber hemp (dicotyledon) as compared to tall fescue and fiber sorghum (monocotyledons). The xylan, arabinan and total hemicellulose contents were higher in tall fescue and fiber sorghum as compared to fiber hemp. The precision of the NDE-SAH-LC-CAD method was better for polysaccharide concentration levels above 1g/100g dry matter. Galactan analysis offered a lower precision, due to a lower CAD response intensity to galactose as compared to the other monosaccharides. The dispersions of the results (expanded uncertainty) of the NDE-SAH-LC-CAD method were smaller as compared to the Van Soest (VS) method. In addition, the NDE-SAH-LC-CAD method was able to provide additional information on the composition of the hemicellulose (xylan, arabinan, mannan and galactan content) that is not provided by the Van Soest method. The NDE-SAH-LC-CAD method offers also the advantage of a better specificity for hemicellulose and cellulose, as compared to the NREL and Uppsala methods.