Effect of sodium hydroxide pretreatment on released sugar yields from pomelo peels for biofuel production

Most of the agricultural wastes in developing countries are disposed by on-site combustion leading to unmanaged environmental pollutions. Conversion value-added products, such as bioethanol and biogas, is a promising method reduce agro-waste after harvesting seasons. In this study, Citrus maxima peels (Pomelo peels) was selected be converted reducing sugars, which could raw material produce other products. To promote enzymatic hydrolysis reactions, pomelo were pretreated with sodium hydroxide variations three pretreatment parameters, including temperature (50-100 ºC), time (0.5-6 h), concentration NaOH (0.5-3.0 M). Box-Behnken design (BBD) applied Response Surface Methodology (RSM) determine optimized condition find relationship between factors sugar yields. The predicted optimal determined at 94.28 ºC, 4.5h, 2.17M yield 98.9 mg/g dried peels. results clearly showed that yields obtained from 1.87 folds higher than untreated biomass (52.81 peels). Therefore, study demonstrated potential used an alternative for products rather being landfill or causal agent pollution.