13-14: Effect of water pretreatment on the biomass structure and enzymatic hydrolysis yields of sweet sorghum bagasse

Monday, April 29, 2013
Exhibit Hall
Saeed Oladi and Giovanna Aita, Audubon Sugar Institute, Louisiana State University, Agcenter, Saint gabriel, LA
The use of lignocellulosic biomass as a renewable source for the production of second generation biofuels has received great attention in recent decades. However, developing energy and cost effective pretreatments with high sugar conversion and fermentation yields remains a major challenge. Biomass pretreatment with ammonia, sulfuric acid or lime adds to the total processing cost due to the need of downstream neutralization or recovery and the chemical material itself. Thus, reaching for a trade-off point in terms of conversion rate and energy and chemical demand would be of great importance. In this study, the effect of hot water pretreatment on the physical properties and enzymatic hydrolysis yields of sweet sorghum bagasse was investigated at various temperatures, retention times and total solids.  Results were compared to ammonia pretreated sweet sorghum bagasse.