ABSTRACT

The biomass used in the course of this study were agricultural residues which include corn cob, corn stover, saw dust and elephant grass. The feedstocks were prepared by air drying till the feedstocks were completely dried followed by size reduction of each feedstock and then the ground feedstocks were screened to a particle size of 1.68mm. Compositional analysis of the various feedstocks were carried out by removing the hemicellulose and lignin content. The hemicellulose content was estimated by adding 250ml solution of 0.5M NaOH to the sample that was weighed out and heated at a controlled temperature for a residence time of 60 minutes. The lignin content was estimated from the dried residue by boiling in 100ml 0.5M H2SO4 for 2 hours and allowed to remain soaked for 24 hours at ambient temperature. The pretreatment process was optimized using the box bekhen RSM model. The optimum pretreatment conditions for each feedstock was determined and the maximum sugar concentration in g/l was obtained. The conditions varied were time(5 to 25 minutes), temperature(100℃ to 140℃) and base concentration(0% to 4%).