Hydrolysis of Bamboo Fiber for Production of Fermentable Sugars in Saturated Formic Acid

Bamboo is thought as an alternative feedstock for the production of fine chemicals, such as fuel ethanol and lactic acid to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Pretreatment is an essential step in the enzymatic hydrolysis of biomass for bioethanol production. In this study, hydrolysis of bamboo fiber for fermentable sugars production in hydrochloric acid used as a catalyst in saturated formic acid solution were studied. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the hydrochloric acid concentration, temperature, the ratio of solid to liquid and reaction time on the fermentable sugars production. The optimum conditions were: adding 4% hydrochloric acid in saturated formic acid solution, temperature of 65 degrees C, 4% of the ratio of solid to solvent, with a reaction time of 90 min, under these conditions, the hydrolysate contained 23.52% glucose and 28.51% reducing sugars.