Cost reduction approaches for fermentable sugar production from sugarcane bagasse and its impact on techno-economics and the environment

In an enzymatically driven lignocellulosic biorefinery, pretreatment and hydrolysis modules are the two most significant cost contributors for obtaining high gravity sugar solutions. The present study aimed to reduce use of alkali Cellic CTec2 during bioprocessing sugarcane bagasse (SCB). Later its impact on overall process economics environment was evaluated. During pretreatment, solid loading 15% (w/w) 2% (w/v) sodium hydroxide at 121 °C 30 min emerged as optimum strategy. It resulted in > 65% delignification SCB, retaining ? 90% glucan xylan fraction, respectively, pretreated biomass. Two approaches were evaluated parallel minimize requirement this commercial cellulase enzyme blend. first strategy involved partial replacement with in-house cocktail by blending. second route performing reduced loadings blend above temperature, which gave more promising results. Hydrolysis 20% SCB dosed 15 mg protein g?1 led 84.13 ± 1 83.5 2.3% conversion yields respectively 48 h 52.5 °C. filtrate wash fraction contained 165 65 g L?1 monomers representing glucose xylose. However, both fractions 75%, accounted glucose. techno-economic analysis revealed that production from 1.32 US$/kg, optimized bioprocess. Environmental showed contributed 1.57 kg CO2 eq terms climate change.