Diaz Sanchez A., Le Toullec J., Blandino Garrido A., De Ory Arriaga I., Caro Pina I., 2013, Pretreatment of Rice Hulls with Alkaline Peroxide to Enhance Enzyme Hydrolysis for Ethanol Production, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 32, 949-954.
Alkaline peroxide pre-treatment was evaluated for the conversion of rice hulls to simple sugars through out enzyme hydrolysis for the subsequent ethanol production. For this purpose, the effects of peroxide concentration and reaction time were studied. Peroxide concentration showed a positive effect on degradation of rice hulls lignocellulosic structure providing a greater access to hydrolytic enzymes. Thus, better global yields (sum of the pre-treatment and hydrolysis yields) were attained when higher peroxide concentrations were used. Among the conditions tested, the highest global yield of 86.48 ± 3.07% was attained with a peroxide concentration of 7.5%, at pH 11.5, 90°C and 1h. With the proposed pre-treatment, a global yield around 70% can be achieved in 15 minutes of incubation.
