Innovative microwave-assisted iodized table salt or paper wastewater pretreatments for enhanced sugar recovery from banana pseudostem

Iodized table salt and Kraft paper and pulp wastewater represent potential, cost-effective lignocellulosic pretreatment catalysts. Therefore, to determine their pretreatment applicability, the present study modelled and optimized two novel methods, namely (1) microwave-assisted-iodized table salt (M-ITS) and (2) microwave-assisted-paper wastewater (M-PWW) strategy for the enhancement of sugar recovery from banana pseudostem. Pretreatment optimization revealed a slightly higher reducing sugar (0.515 g/g) and glucose yield (0.433 g/g) for the M-ITS strategy compared to the M-PWW method (reducing sugar = 0.498 g/g and glucose = 0.413 g/g). Although both methods displayed comparable sugar yields to previous pretreatment studies that used expensive chemicals, the M-PWW strategy demonstrated a higher efficiency, since it is completely waste-based and requires fewer pretreatment cycles. Major findings from this study paves the way for lignocellulosic pretreatment by potentially negating the use of costly chemicals and/or fresh water, while achieving a "waste treating waste" approach.