Subcritical water hydrolysis of sugar beet pulp towards production of monosaccharide fraction

Sugar beet pulp represents one of the most abundant by-product in food industry in terms of underexploited opportunities and amounts produced. In order to produce added-value product from this lignocellulosic material, subcritical water hydrolysis was applied in this study. Response surface methodology was used to evaluate the effects of hydrolysis parameters and optimize conditions for various responses. Hydrolysis temperature, hydrolysis time and HCl concentration were investigated as independent variables. The results obtained indicated highly promising application of corresponding hydrolysis technique towards valorization of proposed raw material. Relatively high yield of fermentable sugars with the addition of acid agent and the higher hydrolysis rates of lignocellulosic material compared to the previously published studies were obtained. Hydrolysis efficiency was higher than 50% and total monosaccharide yield reached up to 5.669 mg/mL which is significantly higher than previously reported results.