Enhancement of sugar release from sugarcane bagasse through NaOH-catalyzed ethylene glycol pretreatment and water-soluble sulfonated lignin

In this work, five different NaOH-catalyzed ethylene glycol (EG) pretreatments together with water-soluble sulfonated lignin (SL) were used for enhancing sugarcane bagasse (SCB) enzymatic digestion. The results showed that the coupling of NaOH and EG into a one-pot pretreatment (10%NaOH/EG) was more beneficial to improve SCB enzymatic hydrolysis than that of single 10%NaOH or EG pretreatment, or the two-step pretreatment of NaOH and EG in different sequence (10%NaOH+EG and EG + 10%NaOH, respectively). The highest glucose yield of this work was 91.2 %, mainly released from the SCB that pretreated with 10%NaOH/EG at 130 °C for 60 min and 72 h enzymatic hydrolysis. The adding of SL into the enzymatic hydrolysis step could significantly lower the cellulase dosage and hydrolysis time from 20 FPU/g and 72 h to 10 FPU/g and 24 h, respectively, meanwhile keeping a high glucose yield of 90.4 %. The characterization of various pretreated or un-pretreated SCB confirmed that the improvement of hydrolysis efficiency of SCB after 10%NaOH/EG pretreatment was closely related to the removal of various components barriers in SCB and the fragmentation of pretreated solid. It can be concluded that the developed NaOH-catalyzed ethylene glycol pretreatment was an efficiency way to enhance the sugar release from SCB.