Twenty different samples of natural bagasse were pretreated
by steam explosion on the pilot scale and they were analyzed.
These procedures are designed to separate, by auto hydrolysis, the
hemicellulose present in the biomass. Sugarcane bagasse containing
approximately 50% of moisture was transferred to a stainless
steel reactor with capacity of 200L and sealed. Steam was injected
in the reactor up to a pressure of almost 1.3 MPa equivalent to
13 kgf cm−2 (190 ◦C) and keptthere for a period of 15 min. After this