Enhancing enzymatic hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse by ferric chloride catalyzed organosolv pretreatment and Tween 80

In this work, a FeCl3-catalyzed organosolv pretreatment was employed at 160 °C to remove hemicellulose and lignin in sugarcane bagasse leaving the cellulose-enriched residue for enzymatic hydrolysis to sugars. The solubilized hemicellulose fractions consisted more monomer xylose than oligomer xylose. The FeCl3-catalyzed organosolv pretreatment significantly improved the enzymatic hydrolysis, nearly 100% of cellulose components were converted to glucose after pretreatment with 0.05 M FeCl3. Structural analysis was employed to reveal how pretreatment affected the enzymatic hydrolysis. With the addition of Tween 80, the same level of glucose was obtained with 50% reduction of enzyme dosage after 24 h. Furthermore, the influence of Tween 80 on different pretreatment systems was investigated, indicating that the improvement was increased as the lignin content increased, decreased with high enzyme loading and extending hydrolysis time. This work suggested that the addition of Tween 80 could improve the enzymatic hydrolysis, reduce the hydrolysis time and enzyme dosage.