Alkaline pre-treatment of oilseed rape straw for bioethanol production: Evaluation of glucose yield and pre-treatment energy consumption

The objective of the research was to investigate the effect of biomass loading, alkali (NaOH) concentration and pre-treatment time on the yield of glucose obtained following alkaline pre-treatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of oilseed rape (OSR) straw. A maximum glucose yield of (440.6 ± 14.9) g glucose kg−1 biomass was obtained when OSR straw was pre-treated at a biomass loading of 50 g kg−1 and an alkali concentration of 0.63 mol dm−3 NaOH for 30 min. The energy efficiency of glucose extraction (0.39 kg glucose MJ−1 consumed) was highest when OSR straw was pre-treated at a biomass loading of 50 g kg−1 and an alkali concentration of 0.63 or 0.75 mol dm−3 for 30 min. The study demonstrated alkaline pre-treatment of OSR straw is superior to acid pre-treatment in terms of glucose yield and energy efficiency.