Fractal-like Kinetic Analysis on the Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Liquid Hot Water, Hydrochloric Acid and Sodium Hydroxide Pretreated Sugarcane Bagasse

LHW (liquid hot water), HCl (hydrochloric acid) and NaOH (sodium hydroxide) were used to pretreat sugarcane bagasse (SB), and composition assay showed that the carbohydrate content in NaOH pretreated SB got to 84.3% and lignin decreased to 3.4%, while the LHW and HCl pretreatments brought similar composition changes, where the carbohydrate content reached 61.2% and 66.6%, respectively, and the lignin content – about 30%. The subsequent enzymatic digestion yielded sugar (glucose and xylose) concentrations from LHW, HCl and NaOH pretreated SB of 12.0, 13.7 and 30.8 g/L, respectively. In order to improve the enzymatic digestion, Tween 80 and xylanase were added to LHW/HCl and NaOH pretreated SB, respectively. Results showed that the sugar concentration from the modified enzymatic digestion increased to 16.9, 17.7 and 33.7 g/L, respectively. Fractal-like kinetics also showed Tween 80 addition decreased the fractal dimension of the pretreated SB, and xylanase addition increased the constant rate during enzymatic hydrolysis.