Irradiation pretreatment facilitates the achievement of high total sugars concentration from lignocellulose biomass

•Irradiation pretreatment could reduce particle size and low shear rate of feedstock.•251 g/L of high sugars content could be achieved from irradiated biomass.•30-40% (w/v) of irradiated biomass loadings was employed for the hydrolysis process.•235 g/L glucose content could be obtained in cellulose enzymatic hydrolysate.•High sugars concentration from lignocellulose opens up a door to biorefinery.

This study evaluated the two hydrolysis strategies, involving one thermal and one dilute acid/enzymatic hydrolysis, to produce high xylose and glucose concentrations from lignocellulose assisted with irradiation pretreatment. Prior to hydrolysis, lignocellulose was pretreated by γ-irradiation at 800 KGy. The merits of irradiation pretreatment on lignocellulose were contributed to size-reduced particle distributions and low shear rate of material, which allowed high biomass loadings up to 30-40% (w/v, equals to 23-29 wt.%) for the consequent hydrolysis process. Results showed that hemicellulose fraction could achieve ∼84 g/L of total sugars containing ∼55 g/L xylose and ∼21 g/L glucose through this two steps hydrolysis. Cellulose fraction would release ∼251 g/L of total sugars consisting of ∼235 g/L glucose and ∼16 g/L xylose in the ultimate enzymatic hydrolysate. To the best of our knowledge, it was the first report of achieving 235 g/L glucose in cellulose enzymatic hydrolysate derived from lignocellulose.

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