Study of Liquor from Hemicelluloses Separation Process in Black Carob Tree Sawdust Biorefinery

Abstract

This research work utilized pretreated black carob tree sawdust as raw material, given it is plenty of this waste in the Northeast Argentinian region and its objective was to optimize the third stage of a biorefinery process. The acid pretreatment in biorefinery processes was used to extract the maximum quantity of hemicelluloses, to retain the highest cellulose concentration in the pretreated solid and to prevent degradation of sugars contained in the process liquor. Using a central composite design of experiments optimization of hemicellulose extraction of washed partially delignified black carob tree sawdust was achieved. Results from the central composite design of experiments, with two repetitions of central point, have shown that it is possible to obtain liquor yielding 2.9% Solubilized glucose, 54.5% Solubilized xylose, and 0.3% degraded xylose, by an optimal process using 1.5% H2SO4, 7.7% solids for 15.0 min.