Pretreatment is among the most costly steps in the overall biological conversion of cellulosic biomass to fuels and chemicals. Pretreatment also has a profound effect on all other operations from choice and preparation of feedstock all the way to final product recovery and use of process residues. Yet, because cellulosic biomass is naturally resistant to breakdown to release the sugars containe...

This study used two different approaches to model changes in biomass composition during microwave-based pretreatment of switchgrass: kinetic modeling using a time-dependent rate coefficient, and a Mamdani-type fuzzy inference system. In both modeling approaches, the dielectric loss tangent of the alkali reagent and pretreatment time were used as predictors for changes in amounts of lignin, cell...

In this study, the optimization of microwave-assisted alkaline (MAA) pretreatment is performed to attain optimal operating parameters for delignification cocoa pod husk (CPH). The MAA performance was examined by heating CPH solid with different particle sizes (60–120 mesh) and NaOH solution a sample solvent (SS) ratio (0.02–0.05 g/L), short irradiation time (1–4 min). Box-Behnken Design (BBD) u...