3.2. Sono-assisted alkaline delignification of cane bagasse
Initially, the effect of ultrasound on the susceptibility to enzymatic
hydrolysis of alkali-washed bagasse (AWB) was evaluated.
In this case, no effect was observed in the degree of delignification
(around 61%) when bagasse was extracted with and without the
assistance of ultrasonic irradiation (163 W) at 80 ◦C for 30 min using
5 wt% TS and 0.5 g of NaOH g−1 of biomass (dry basis). However, the
sono-assisted alkali-washed substrate (SA-AWB) was much better
for enzymatic hydrolysis than the corresponding AWB substrate as
shown in Fig. 1. The use of 33 mg of Cellic® CTec3 g−1 (or 7.1 FPU g−1
TS) of SA-AWB at 4 wt% TS led to a hydrolysis yield of 81.8
±
2.44%
in 96 h, whereas only 69.7
±
0.07% was obtained from AWB under
the same experimental conditions.