Pretreatment by microwave/alkali treatment of corn cobs for biofuel production

Abstract

Corn cobs are one type of the most promising lignocellulosic biomass for biofuel production. The complexity of lignocellulosic biomass requires a pretreatment step to improve the yield of fermentable sugars. The main objective of this work was to optimize the conditions of pretreatment of corn cobs using microwave and potassium hydroxide (0.75 % w/v to 3 % w/v) at a specific temperature range. The pretreated corn cobs were subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis to produce the reducing sugar. The highest sugar yield of 52.19 g/100 g was obtained from the corn cobs pretreated by microwave and 2 % potassium hydroxide at 120 °C for 25 min. The results indicated that microwave-assisted alkali treatment was an efficient way to improve the enzymatic hydrolysis accessibility.