Improvement of sweet sorghum bagasse hydrolysis by alkali and acidic pretreatments

The present work deals with enzymatic hydrolysis of sweet sorghum bagasse to fermentable sugars. The bagasse was treated with phosphoric acid and sodium hydroxide prior to enzymatic hydrolysis by commercial cellulase and β-glucosidase. The phosphoric acid pretreatment was performed at 50°C for 30 min, while 12% NaOH was used for the alkali treatment at 0°C for 3 h. The phosphoric acid pretreatment resulted in improving the subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis up to 79% of the theoretical yield. However, the best results of enzymatic hydrolysis were obtained in the hydrolysis of pretreated bagasse by NaOH solution, where more than 92% of the theoretical sugar yield was obtained.