Pretreatment of rice straw by proton beam irradiation for efficient enzyme digestibility

Biomass was pretreated with proton beam irradiation (PBI) in order to enhance enzyme digestibility. Rice straw and soaking in aqueous ammonia (SAA)-treated rice straw were treated with 1-25 kGy doses of PBI at a beam energy of 45 MeV. The optimal doses of PBI for efficient sugar recovery were 15 and 3 kGy for rice straw and SAA-treated rice straw, respectively. When PBI was applied to rice straw at 15 kGy, the glucose conversion reached 68% of the theoretical maximum at 72 h. When 3 kGy of PBI was applied to SAA-treated rice straw, approximately 90% of the theoretical glucose conversion was obtained at 12 h compared to a 89% conversion at 48 h. After 2 h of enzymatic saccharification, the initial reaction rates of raw rice straw pretreated with 15 kGy of PBI and SAA-treated rice straw pretreated with 3 kGy of PBI were 1.4 × 10⁻⁴ and 9.7 × 10⁻⁴ g L⁻¹ s⁻¹, respectively. Further, the results of X-ray diffractometry support the effect of PBI on sugar recovery, whereas scanning electron microscopy images revealed a more rugged rice straw surface.