Vacuum-assisted alkaline pretreatment as an innovative approach for enhancing fermentable sugar yield and decreasing inhibitor production of sugarcane bagasse

Sodium hydroxide pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse under vacuum conditions was established and evaluated in this study. Compared to pretreatment under conventional moderate pressure conditions, only half of the total phenolic compounds and less than half of the formic acid were produced under vacuum conditions, while the yield of total fermentable sugar was significantly increased by 31.38%. The pretreatment parameters: NaOH concentration, pretreatment time, and pretreatment temperature, were optimized using response surface methodology based on the response values of the total fermentable sugar yield (TFSY) and the total fermentable sugar concentration (TFSC), respectively. Under the optimal conditions, the TFSY of 0.5146 g/g and the TFSC of 17.37 g/L were achieved, respectively. By adjusting the ratio of cellulases to xylanase, the TFSY reached a maximum of 0.5213 g/g when the ratio was 1:1, while the maximum TFSC of 17.71 g/L was achieved when the ratio was 1:4.