Autohydrolysis pretreatment assessment in ethanol production from agave bagasse

The aim of the present work was to assess the autohydrolysis pretreatment of Agave tequilana bagasse for ethanol production. The pretreatment was conducted using a one-liter high pressure Parr reactor under different severity factors (SF) at a 1:6 w/v ratio (solid:liquid) and 200 rpm. The solids obtained under the selected autohydrolysis conditions were subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis with a commercial cellulase cocktail, and the enzymatic hydrolysate was fermented using Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The results obtained from the pretreatment process showed that the glucan content in the pretreated solid was mostly preserved, and an increase in the digestibility was observed for the case with a SF of 4.13 (190 °C, 30 min). Enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated solids showed a yield of 74.3%, with a glucose concentration of 126 g/L, resulting in 65.26 g/L of ethanol after 10 h of fermentation, which represent a 98.4% conversion according to the theoretical ethanol yield value.