Enhanced Enzymatic Saccharification of Agri- Food Solid Wastes by Microwave Pre-treatment

The second generation bioethanol production has been a focus area of research and development activities worldwide. Bio-wastes generated in the agriculture and food industry can be considered a low priced and reproducible feedstock for biofuel technologies. Enhancing of the efficiency of enzymatic saccharification of lignocellulosic materials is a key issue to make the bioethanol fermentation more cost effective and increase the overall capacity of the process. Microwave (MW) pre-treatment is a novel technology to increase the sugar yield and ethanol production due to the accelerated cellulose hydrolysis. In our work, the effects of MW irradiation with different intensities and combination of them with acid and alkaline pre-treatments were investigated on the efficiency of saccharification of sorghum bagasse and black currant press residues. Our results show, that the MW pre-treatments could significantly increase the amount of hydrolyzed sugar from cellulose and the rate of decomposition was also accelerated. The highest degree of saccharification was observed after combined alkaline-microwave pre-treatment for both the sorghum bagasse and berry press residue, but the positive effect of MW irradiation on cellulose hydrolysis was limited using high intensity irradiation with longer exposure time.