Alkaline pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse on pilot scale reactor

Sugarcane bagasse is one of the potential raw materials for producing bioethanol based on lignocellulosic biomass.The aim of this study is to determine the percentage of lignocellulose over the duration of the pretreatment delignification process.The delignification of pilot scale in the form of a reactor batch has a volume capacity of 147 L with a working volume capacity of 120 L. Sugarcane bagasse used in this process was 3 kg per batch with a size of 50 mesh. The pretreatment method was carried out chemically using NaOH at a concentration of 1 N, a working temperature of 120 degrees C with a pressure of 2 bar and the variation of the delignification time was 1,1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, and 3.5 hours.The highest cellulose content from this study was found at delignification time of 1.5 hours which was 77.26%, greater than the sugarcane bagasse without pretreatment, with a cellulose content of 43.48%. At reaction time of 2 to 3.5 hours, the results showed a decrease in cellulose content with an average gain of 74.63%.Thus increasing the time in the chemical delignification pretreatment process did not affect the increase in cellulose percentage acquisition.