Study of thermal treatment combined with radiation on the decomposition of polysaccharides in sugarcane bagasse

Abstract Sugarcane bagasse pretreatment is a physical and chemical process that reduces the crystalline structure and disrupts the hydrogen bonding of cellulose to improve the accessibility to hydrolytic depolymerization reactions. The combination of pretreatment technologies intends to decrease the severity of the processes and to avoid excessive sugar degradation and formation of toxic by-products. An effective pretreatment preserves the pentose fractions and limits the formation of degradation products that inhibits the growth of fermentative microorganisms. This study presents the evaluation of the cleavage of polysaccharides from sugarcane bagasse using ionizing radiation combined with thermal and diluted acid treatment to further enzymatic or chemical hydrolysis of cellulose. Samples of sugarcane bagasse were irradiated using a Radiation Dynamics electron beam accelerator with 1.5 MeV and 37 kW, with different absorbed doses, and then were submitted to thermal and acid (0.1% sulfuric acid, m/m) hydrolysis for 10, 20 and 40 min at 180 °C. Taking into account the sugars and by-products liberated in these treatments the conversion rates of cellulose and hemicelluloses were calculated.