Renewable sugars hydrolyzed from banana pseudo-stem using different chemical pretreatments

Cellulose and hemicelluloses are the main building block of plant cell wall and are known as a natural polymer that usually used in the industries. Cellulose and hemicelluloses could be used as a feedstock for second generation biofuel production where it is subjected to hydrolysis into sugar after which it can be converted into bioethanol through fermentation process. In this study, the matured banana pseudo-stem is used as the source of hydrolyzing sugar from natural material. The objective of this research is to study the effects of different chemical pretreatments (sodium hydroxide, mixture of sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide, sulphuric acid, mixture of sulphuric acid and hydrogen peroxide) and hydrolysis time (1-5 hours) on the sugar yield from banana pseudo-stem. Results showed that, after 3 hours hydrolysis most of the sugars from all chemical pretreatments reduced gradually. Analysis of sugar contents from acid hydrolysis process using High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) showed that all the samples contained glucose, xylose, and arabinose where the highest glucose (16.02 mg/L) obtained from fiber treated with mixture of 1.0 M sulphuric acid and hydrogen peroxide. In addition, both highest xylose (64.23 mg/L) and arabinose (45.78 mg/L) are obtained from fiber treated with 0.5 M sodium hydroxide.