Effects of moisture and ozonolysis on sugarcane bagasse pretreatment

Abstract

Sugarcane bagasse is the residue of the production of sugar and ethanol, which can be used as a substrate for glucose production through enzymatic hydrolysis. The lignin present in the bagasse reduces the action of the enzyme and is sensitive to reactive compounds such as ozone. To reduce the lignin content, pre-treatments with different ozone processing time and bagasse moisture were evaluated. The results showed that the better pre-treatment conditions were: 40,59% of bagasse moisture and 19,5 minutes of ozonolysis. This condition presented good results regarding the carbohydrates found in the sugarcane bagasse despite the reduction of the insoluble acid lignin.