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Dilute ammonia pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse followed by enzymatic hydrolysis to sugars

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Abstract

In this work, dilute ammonia pretreatment was performed to break the intricate structure of sugarcane bagasse, which resists the enzyme accessibility to cellulose. The effects of pretreatment temperatures (140–180 °C), times (20–100 min) and ammonia dosage (5–25 wt%) on the recoveries of glucan, xylan, and acid in-soluble lignin were evaluated. The pretreatment performed at 170 °C, 60 min and 15 wt% ammonia resulted in delignification of 36.9 % and retaining 94.7 % of glucan and 63.1 % of xylan in the raw material. Then the enzymatic digestibilities of pretreated samples were investigated, 34.2 g glucose and 13.2 g xylose based on 100 g raw material could be obtained after that pretreatment condition, representing 82.7 % glucose and 47.3 % xylose in sugarcane bagasse. The enhanced digestibilities of dilute ammonia pretreated sugarcane bagasse were due to delignification and the removal of proportion of hemicellulose, which were confirmed by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the financial support from the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (no. 2012AA101806), National Key Basic Research Program of China (no. 2013CB228101) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 31270625 and 21176095).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, People’s Republic of China

    Hongdan Zhang & Shubin Wu

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  1. Hongdan Zhang
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  2. Shubin Wu
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Correspondence to Shubin Wu.

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Zhang, H., Wu, S. Dilute ammonia pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse followed by enzymatic hydrolysis to sugars. Cellulose 21, 1341–1349 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-014-0233-3

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