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Author: search.filters.author.Mthembu, Lethiwe DebraSubject: search.filters.subject.Bagasse

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    Enzymatic saccharification of acid/alkali pre-treated, millrun, and depithed sugarcane bagasse
    (Open Journal Systems, 2016) Mkhize, Thandeka, Y.; Mthembu, Lethiwe Debra; Gupta, Rishi; Kaur, Amandeep; Kuhad, Ramesh Chander; Reddy, Prashant; Deenadayalu, Nirmala
    In South Africa, approximately 3 × 106 tons of sugarcane bagasse is produced annually by 14 factories located on the north coast of KwaZulu-Natal. It is one of the most readily available lignocellulosic materials for ethanol production through enzymatic saccharification and hydrolysis. Pre-treatment enables disruption of the naturally resistant structure of lignocellulosic biomass to make the cellulose accessible to hydrolysis for conversion to biofuels. In this study, pre-treatment of depithed bagasse and mill-run bagasse was done using acid (3% H2SO4 v/v) followed by alkali (4% NaOH w/v), and the pre-treated solid was subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis. The effects of different conditions for enzymatic saccharification such as enzyme dose, reaction time, and amount of surfactant were studied in detail. The pre-treated substrate (10% w/v) when hydrolysed using 30 FPU/gds/40 FPU/g dry substrate (gds) with 0.4% (v/v) Tween® 80 for 20 h resulted in 608 mg/gds (depithed bagasse) and 604 mg/gds (mill-run bagasse) total reducing sugars.
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    Production of levulinic acid from sugarcane bagasse
    (2016) Mthembu, Lethiwe Debra; Deenadayalu, Nirmala; Reddy, P.
    The main aim of this work was to produce levulinic acid (LA) from sugarcane bagasse (SB) and since there is approximately 3 000 000 tons of bagasse produced per annum by 16 factories that are located on the north coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal, after the extraction of sugar. For this project fructose was firstly used for the production of LA, thereafter SB was used to produce LA. Cellulose was extracted from sugarcane bagasse using two types of pre-treatments namely (i) acid-alkali pre-treatment and (ii) liquid hot water (LHW). In the latter method acid hydrolysis and enzymatic hydrolysis was used to hydrolyse cellulose to glucose. For the acid-alkali pre-treatment work, two types of bagasse was used namely (i) mill-run bagasse and (ii) depithed bagasse and for the LHW a mill-run bagasse (pellets form) was used. In both pre-treatment methods the glucose solution was then acid catalysed by two different acids (i) an environment friendly acid, methanesulfonic acid (MSA) and (ii) sulphuric acid, producing levulinic acid. The results showed that MSA and sulphuric acid produced almost the same yield of LA but, MSA is preferred for the production of LA since it is less toxic and less corrosive than sulphuric acid.