Reusable alkaline catalyzed organosolv pretreatment and delignification of bagasse for sugar platform biorefinery

An alternative sodium methoxide (CH₃ONa) in methanol medium was investigated for the pretreatment of bagasse. The use of CH₃ONa as an alkaline promoter resulted in relatively high delignification efficiency and solid glucan recovery. The modified pretreatment process helps improve the enzymatic hydrolysis for sugar production. The effect of the reaction condition was evaluated by response surface methodology (RSM) to determine the maximized glucose yield. The optimal condition was performed at 150 °C for 63.9 min in the presence of CH₃ONa promoter of 5.1% w/v, leading to the delignification of 86.5% and the maximized glucose yield of 83.9%. The reusability suggests that the recovery of the solvent mixture without the purification process showed efficiency in consecutive batch processing with five cycles. Structural characteristic analysis (i.e., SEM and XRD) of pretreated bagasse demonstrated significant removal of lignin fraction, resulting in increased cellulose digestibility in enzymatic hydrolysis for sugar platform biorefinery.