Impact of liquid hot water pretreatment on the structural changes of sugarcane bagasse biomass for sugar production

Liquid hot water pretreatment, as an initial step in an alternative use of lignocellulosic biomass to produce fermentable sugar, was performed in this study. The effect of pretreatment temperature range from 160 to 200 degrees C on the hemicellulose degradation (the yields of glucose and xylose, as well as inhibitors) and cellulose enzymatic digestibility were evaluated. The results indicated that the maximum xylose yields (combined 2.23 g xylose and 13.20 g xylo-oligosaccharides per 100g raw material) in prehydrolysate liquid were obtained at 180 degrees C. The untreated and pretreated solid residues were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The results showed that liquid hot water pretreatment removed a large number of hemicellulose and resulted in enriched cellulose and lignin content in the pretreated residues. Due to the effective removal of hemicellulose, the maximum glucose yield in enzyme hydrolyzate reached 37.27 g per 100 g raw material (after the pretreatment temperature of 200 degrees C), representing 90.13% of glucose in the sugarcane bagasse.