Optimizing Phosphoric Acid plus Hydrogen Peroxide (PHP) Pretreatment on Wheat Straw by Response Surface Method for Enzymatic Saccharification

Wheat straw was pretreated by phosphoric acid plus hydrogen peroxide (PHP), in which temperature, time, and H3PO4 proportion for pretreatment were investigated by using response surface method. Results indicated that hemicellulose and lignin removal positively responded to the increase of pretreatment temperature, H3PO4 proportion, and time. H3PO4 proportion was the most important variable to control cellulose recovery, followed by pretreatment temperature and time. Moreover, these three variables all negatively related to cellulose recovery. Increasing H3PO4 proportion can improve enzymatic hydrolysis; however, reduction on cellulose recovery results in decrease of glucose yield. Extra high temperature or long time for pretreatment was not beneficial to enzymatic hydrolysis and glucose yield. Based on the criterion for minimizing H3PO4 usage and maximizing glucose yield, the optimized pretreatment conditions was 40 °C, 2.0 h, and H3PO4 proportion of 70.2 % (H2O2 proportion of 5.2 %), by which glucose yielded 299 mg/g wheat straw (946.2 mg/g cellulose) after 72-h enzymatic hydrolysis.