Hydrolysis of bamboo biomass by subcritical water treatment

• Reaction temperature and time shown more impact on total reducing sugars yield.
• Highest yield of total reducing sugars obtained at 180 °C and 25 min of reaction time.
• X-ray diffraction profile shown increase in crystallinity index after treatment.
• Kinetics of bamboo was considered as first-order irreversible series reaction.

The aim of present study was to obtain total reducing sugars (TRS) from bamboo under subcritical water (SCW) treatment in a batch reactor at the temperature ranging from 170 °C to 220 °C and 40 min hydrolysis time. Experiments were performed to investigate the effects of temperature and time on TRS yield. The maximum TRS yield (42.21%) was obtained at lower temperature (180 °C), however longer reaction time (25 min). X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis were used to characterise treated and untreated bamboo samples. The XRD profile revealed that crystallinity of bamboo increased to 71.90% with increase in temperature up to 210 °C and decreased thereafter to 70.92%. The first-order reaction kinetic model was used to fit the experimental data to obtain rate constants. From the Arrhenius plot, activation energy and pre-exponential factor at 25 min time were found to be 17.97 kJ mol−1 and 0.154 min−1, respectively.

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