Physicochemical Treatment for Improving Bioconversion of Cassava Industrial Residues

In the present study, a comparison of two types of microwave pretreatment such as microwave assisted alkali and microwave assisted acid were studied using cassava pulp as the substrate. The effect of pretreatment agent concentration, microwave power and pretreatment time on enzymatic saccharification was studied using a response surface method according to Central Composite design. Under optimized conditions, microwave assisted alkali pretreatment of cassava pulp with 2.27% NaOH at 125 W for 18 min followed by enzymatic hydrolysis gave reducing sugar yield of 0.472 g g(-1) dry biomass, while microwave assisted acid treatment with 1.95% H2SO4 at 135 W for 25 min showed reducing sugar yield of 0.306 g g(-1) dry biomass. The yield from microwave assisted alkali was higher and was 2.7 times higher than that obtained with raw cassava pulp. Microwave assisted liquefaction of pretreated cassava pulp at 100 W for 30 min using amylase lowered the process time. (C) 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers