Production of hemicellulosic sugars from sugarcane bagasse via steam explosion employing industrially feasible conditions: Pilot scale study

Development of efficient process for hemicellulosic sugars (C5) production from lignocellulosic feedstocks has a central role in industrial biorefinery. Since the selection of right conditions for feasible fermentable C5 production with maximum yields is crucial, we investigated the effect of different combined severity factors (CSF) in steam explosion (auto-catalyzed (AC) and sulfuric acid catalyzed (SC)) for sugarcane bagasse (SB) pretreatment on xylose and oligosaccharides recovery along with inhibitors characterization. AC-Steam explosion of SB (CSF-0.37) showed lower xylose (15 g/L) amount and higher xylo- and cello-oligosaccharides (60 g/L) than SC-Steam exploded SB (CSF-1.12) showing 40 g/L xylose and xylo- and cello-oligosaccharides (14 g/L). The hemicellulosic sugar solution so called C5-liquors were then submitted for enzymatic hydrolysis (50 °C, 30 h) using the different ratio of commercial lignocellulosic enzymatic cocktails (Cellic® CTec3 and HTec3). By using C5-liquor, AC (Log R0 3.94) showed the best xylan conversion while SC (Log R0 3.78) enhanced conversion of sugars into inhibitors.