Abstract
In the area of bioethanol production based on enzymatic saccharification and fermentation of wood raw materials, enzymatic saccharification methods have attracted attention because of small environmental loads. It is of great importance to establish a reliable preprocessing technique for wood raw materials for efficient enzymatic saccharification. We have developed converge mills-mechanochemical mills with high energy application-and revealed that they were capable of high-efficiency milling of wood raw materials in a short time. The multistage pre-milling processes in combination with hammer milling for pulverization and converge milling for amorphization （complex dry mechanochemical milling） were more efficient, and the enzymatic saccharification properties were remarkably improved. Another new development was the 6-liter semi-continuous type converge mill, which achieved milling performance equivalent to the conventional 1-liter batch type converge mill.
