Abstract
Corn cob is a renewable, cheap and abundant lignocellulosic material. Being a potential source of fermentable sugars, corn cob can be used as a substrate for value added products such as ethanol. This research work studied the glucose production from corn cob using phosphoric and nitric acids at 1300C, acid concentrations of 1wt%, 2wt%, 3wt%, 4wt% and 5wt% respectively and at time intervals of 18mins, 36mins,54mins,72mins and 90mins respectively. The substrate was characterized for the proximate constituents and the results show that corn cob has high hemicellulosic content. Seaman model and the Twofraction model were used in studying the kinetics of glucose concentration in the hydrolysates, and the Twofraction model gave a better fit with R2 equal to 1. A maximum concentration of 0.038mg/ml of glucose was produced when 5wt% H3PO4 was used as catalyst for the hydrolysis, and a time interval of 42mins, with 0.4% susceptibility to hydrolysis. Whereas for the nitric acid hydrolysis, 0.054mg/ml maximum concentration of glucose was produced using 2wt% of HNO3, at a time interval of 77mins, with 0.6% susceptibility to hydrolysis. Comparatively, nitric acid proved to be a more efficient catalyst for acid hydrolysis of corn cobs.
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