Efficient pretreatment of Vietnamese rice straw by soda and sulfate cooking methods for enzymatic saccharification

This manuscript presents a study on alkaline pretreatment of Vietnamese rice (Oryza sativa L.) straw that grows in Northern Vietnam for enzymatic saccharification. The NaOH pretreatment (soda cooking) and NaOH/Na2S pretreatment (sulfate cooking) were applied for rice straw pretreatment, which have relatively similar condition with industrial pulping processes but at lower temperature. Pretreated biomass solid was then enzymatic hydrolyzed by commercial enzyme Cellic®CTec2 (Novozymes) with enzyme dosage of 35 FPU/g to achieve reducing sugars. The suitable condition for pretreatment was found at temperature of about 100 °C, pretreatment time of 2 h, and solid/liquid ratio of 1:10 with active alkali dosage of 20 % of dry rice straw. Under this pretreatment condition, sugar yield in enzymatic hydrolysis up to 45.33 and 48.92 % over dry rice straw could be obtained after soda cooking and sulfate cooking pretreatment, respectively. Moreover, the changes of components of rice straw after pretreatment were also studied. The crystallinity of cellulose in pretreated biomass solid was calculated from XRD pattern. And the fibril morphology after treatment was revealed by the microscopic observations performed by scanning electron microscope (SEM).