Dilute Oxalic Acid Pretreatment for High Total Sugar Recovery in Pretreatment and Subsequent Enzymatic Hydrolysis

Oxalic acid was evaluated as an alternative reagent to mineral inorganic acid in pretreatment of corncob to achieve high xylose yield in addition to highly digestible solid residue. A quadratic polynomial model of xylose formation was developed for optimization of pretreatment process by the response surface methodology based on the impact factors of pretreatment temperature, reaction time, acid concentration, and solid-to-liquid ratio. The highest xylose yield was 94.3 % that was obtained under the pretreatment condition of 140 °C for 40 min with 0.5 wt% oxalic acid at a solid loading of 7.5 %. Under these conditions, the xylose yield results of verification experiments were very close to the model prediction, which indicated that the model was applicable. The solid residue generated under this condition also demonstrated a satisfactory enzymatic digestibility and fermentability.