Pretreatment of Cellulose By Electron Beam Irradiation Method

Pretreatment process of lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) to produce biofuel has been conducted by using various methods including physical, chemical, physicochemical as well as biological. The conversion of bioethanol process typically involves several steps which consist of pretreatment, hydrolysis, fermentation and separation. In this project, microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) was used in replacement of LCB since cellulose has the highest content of LCB for the purpose of investigating the effectiveness of new pretreatment method using radiation technology. Irradiation with different doses (100 kGy to 1000 kGy) was conducted by using electron beam accelerator equipment at Agensi Nuklear Malaysia. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analyses were studied to further understand the effect of the suggested pretreatment step to the content of MCC. Through this method namely IRR-LCB, an ideal and optimal condition for pretreatment prior to the production of biofuel by using LCB may be introduced.