Abstract
Mixtures of starch and lignocelluloses are available in many industrial, agricultural, and municipal wastes and residuals. In this work, dilute sulfuric acid was used for simultaneous pretreatment of lignocellulose and hydrolysis of starch, to obtain a maximum amount of fermentable sugar after enzymatic hydrolysis with cellulase and β-glucosidase. The acid treatment was carried out at 70-150°C with 0-1% (v/v) acid concentration and 5-15% (w/v) solids concentration for 0-40 minutes. Under the optimum conditions, obtained at 130°C, 1% acid, and 7.5% solids loading for 30 min, the starch was almost completely converted to glucose. However, the acid treatment was not successful for efficient hydrolysis of pure cellulose. A mixture of pine softwood and potato as representatives of lignocellulosic and starch components, respectively, were treated at the optimum conditions for acid hydrolysis of starch. The dilute-acid treatment resulted in 1.2, 60.5, and 23.6% hydrolysis of glucan, xylan, and mannan of pine wood and 67% of potato starch to fermentable sugars. After the acid treatment, the solid residue of the mixture was subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis. The enzymatic hydrolysis under the optimum conditions resulted in conversion of 76% of the glucan in the treated softwood. Therefore, using acid treatment of the mixture is a promising process for pretreatment of wood in addition to the hydrolysis of starch.Download PDF