Optimization of xylose production from sugarcane bagasse using response surface methodology (RSM)

Hemicellulose is defined as several polysaccharides that are more complex than a sugar and less complex than cellulose, found in plant cell walls. Xylose is a pentose sugar formed by the hydrolysis of xylan, the substrate found in hemicellulose. Sugarcane bagasse widespread with sugar sources contains about 27% of hemicellulose. After extracting the juice content in sugarcane, the large portion of excess bagasse is burn as waste material causing air pollution. Acid hydrolysis method was used for the pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse to extract hemicellulose compound. The main objective of this research is to optimize the production of xylose from sugarcane bagasse. To achieve the objective, this research was conducted in identified scopes. The scopes of this research includes the study of the effect of agitation time, pH and substrate concentration on xylose production using sugarcane bagasse and to optimize the production of xylose using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is a method in Design Expert software which uses mathematical technique to optimize production based on different parameters. After the pretreatment, hemicellulose was obtained and used to produce xylose using enzymatic hydrolysis method. At the end of this research, it was found that the optimized xylose production from sugarcane bagasse was obtained at agitation time of 5.36 hour, pH 8.73 and substrate concentration of 70.6mg/ml which produce 19.64 mg/ml of xylose. Before optimization, the xylose production was only 13.22 mg/ml and the production of xylose was increased by 49% after optimization.