Abstract:
One of important agricultural residues found in huge quantities to be considered, especially in tropical countries, is sugarcane bagasse. This research studied and optimized the production of sugars through hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse using cellulose-producing bacteria, Microcerotermes sp., from Thai higher termites. Without a pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse, we studied the following effects on the hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse: particle size of ground bagasse (40 and 60 mesh), operating temperature (30 and 37°C), bacteria strain (A 002 and M 015) and type of fermentation media. The sugarcane bagasse used as the raw material obtained from Mitr Phol Sugar Corp., Ltd., consisted of 45.63 wt% cellulose, 21.02 wt% hemicellulose, 29.50 wt% lignin, and 3.85 wt% extractives. The result shows that the bacteria strains have a significant effect on the hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse. The maximum glucose concentration in the product was 1.03 g/L obtained from the hydrolysis of 60 mesh ground bagasse with M 015 bacteria strain at 37°C.
