Low acid hydrothermal fractionation of Giant Miscanthus for production of xylose-rich hydrolysate and furfural

Abstract

Low acid hydrothermal (LAH) fractionation was developed for the effective recovery of hemicellulosic sugar (mainly xylose) from Miscanthus sacchariflorus Goedae-Uksae 1 (M. GU-1). The xylose yield was maximized at 74.75% when the M. GU-1 was fractionated at 180 degrees C and 0.3 wt.% of sulfuric acid for 10 min. At this condition, the hemicellulose (mainly xylan) degradation was 86.41%. The difference between xylan degradation and xylose recovery yield, i.e., xylan loss, was 11.66%, as indicated by the formation of decomposed products. The furfural, the value added biochemical product, was also obtained by 0.42 g/L at this condition, which was 53.82% of furfural production yield based on the xylan loss. After then, the furfural production continued to increase to a maximum concentration of 1.87 g/L, at which point the xylan loss corresponded to 25.87%. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.