Irradiation pretreatment facilitates the achievement of high total sugars concentration from lignocellulose biomass

This study evaluated the two hydrolysis strategies, involving one thermal and one dilute acid/enzymatic hydrolysis, to produce high xylose and glucose concentrations from lignocellulose assisted with irradiation pretreatment. Prior to hydrolysis, lignocellulose was pretreated by gamma-irradiation at 800 KGy. The merits of irradiation pretreatment on lignocellulose were contributed to size-reduced particle distributions and low shear rate of material, which allowed high biomass loadings up to 30-40% (w/v, equals to 23-29 wt.%) for the consequent hydrolysis process. Results showed that hemicellulose fraction could achieve similar to 84 g/L of total sugars containing similar to 55 g/L xylose and similar to 21 g/L glucose through this two steps hydrolysis. Cellulose fraction would release similar to 251 g/L of total sugars consisting of similar to 235 g/L glucose and similar to 16 g/L xylose in the ultimate enzymatic hydrolysate. To the best of our knowledge, it was the first report of achieving 235 g/L glucose in cellulose enzymatic hydrolysate derived from lignocellulose. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.