Effect of chemical pretreatment on Banana trunk for glucose production: optimization studies

Abstract

Banana trunk is one of the examples of non-wood fibre which consists of high cellulose content and low lignin content suitable for high glucose conversion. Effective pretreatment of banana trunk as lignocellulosic biomass can significantly enhance the glucose conversion performance in subsequent hydrolysis process. One-Factor-at-A-Time (OFAT) method was used to evaluate the influencing effects of three targeted process parameters in acidic (2% (v/v) H2SO4) chemical pretreatment, which are the substrate concentration (4 – 10% (w/v)), treatment duration (10 – 40 minutes) and treatment temperature (40 – 100ºC). The optimum pretreatment conditions derived from Response Surface Methodology (RSM) were substrate concentration of 25% (w/v), treatment duration of 35 minutes, and treatment temperature of 100ºC which provided the highest glucose yield of 97.69 g/L. This optimum pretreatment conditions and glucose yields are proved to be significant from the developed model with satisfactory adequacy of 0.9713 in coefficient determination.