A COMPARISON BETWEEN MICROWAVE ASSISTED ALKALINE SODIUM HYDROXIDE AND ALKALINE HYDROGEN PEROXIDE PRETREATMENTS OF GREEN COCONUT FIBER FOR BIOETHANOL PRODUCTION

摘要

The growing need for energy independence and proposed renewable fuels has led recently to a major expansion of fuel ethanol production especially from inedible biomass. In the process of bioethanol production pretreatment is an important process for utilization of lignocellulosic materials to obtain high degree of fermentable sugars. In this study the green coconut fiber was selected as a lignocellulosic biomass. The selected raw material was treated with alkaline sodium hydroxide (pretreatment I) and alkaline hydrogen peroxide (Pretreatment II) respectively and was subjected to microwave radiation for 10 minutes at 250 watts. Pretreated solids were enzymatically hydrolyzed and were examined in a Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation (SSF)process. The results showed that the raw materials subjected to pretreatment II gave a high reducing sugar yield of 35.98mg/g along with high ethanol yield of 1.16g/g.