Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Rice straw was pretreated using dilute sulfuric acid to decrease amorphous portion and to enhance enzyme accessibility by removal. Dilute acid pretreatment process was optimized using statistical method, and relation between each factors were investigated. After pretreatment using dilute acid, aqueous ammonia was utilized to enhance the accessibility. Saccharification of pretreated rice straw was performed, and fermentation of glucose, the hydrolysate of saccharification also subsequently carried out. The optimums of dilute acid pretreatment process were following: 110 °C of temperature, 14.02 min of reaction time and 1.2% of acid concentration. Subsequent to the dilute acid pretreatment, about 20% of solid weight was decreased and 73.14% of theoretical maximum xylose was solubilized. Glucose was recovered about 90% at 24 h when rice straw was treated with dilute acid. Qualitative analysis such as SEM XRD and FT-IR were conducted after pretreatment process and those results supported pretreatment process.