Effect of acetylation/deacetylation on enzymatic hydrolysis of corn stalk

•Corn stalk with different degree of acetylation was prepared.•Composition and acetyl group content in deacetylated/acetylated corn stover was analyzed.•FTIR was used to investigate the change on the main composition and acetyl group in corn stover.•Degree of acetylation showed to be negative on the enzymatic hydrolysis of corn stover.

Effect of degree of acetylation (DA) within corn stalk (CS) on the enzymatic hydrolysis was investigated. By acetylation and deacetylation treatment, CS with different DA from 0.34% to 11.20% was prepared. The analysis of chemical composition by two-step acid hydrolysis and characteristic functional groups via FTIR implied that the structure of the three major components (cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin) in the treated CS was not changed noticeably. The correlation between enzymatic yield and DA was navigated well by the nonlinear curve fit with Adj. R-Square greater than 0.90. The DA was proved to be a crucial barrier to the digestibility of CS. The efficiency of the enzymatic hydrolysis was negatively correlated with DA value.