Hydrogen peroxide presoaking of bamboo prior to AFEX pretreatment and impact on enzymatic conversion to fermentable sugars

Bamboo is a fast growing plant found worldwide that has high potential as an energy crop. This project evaluated the effectiveness of AFEX pretreatment for converting moso bamboo (Phyllostachys heterocycla var. pubescens) to fermentable sugars, both with and without pre-soaking in hydrogen peroxide. Pretreatment conditions including temperature, water loading, residence time, ammonia loading, and hydrogen peroxide loadings were varied to maximize hydrolysis yields. The optimal conditions for AFEX were 150 °C, 0.8 or 2.0 (w/w) water loading, 10–30 min residence time, and 2.0–5.0 (w/w) ammonia loading. The optimal conditions for H-AFEX were same AFEX conditions with 0.7–1.9 (w/w) 30% (wt) hydrogen peroxide solutions loading. Using 15 FPU/g glucan cellulase and under optimal conditions, AFEX pretreatment achieved a theoretical sugars yield of 64.8–72.7% and addition of hydrogen peroxide presoaking increased the yield to 83.4–92.1%. It is about 5-fold and 7-fold increase in sugars yield for AFEX-treated and H-AFEX-treated bamboo respectively.