Mill-dried in natura sugarcane bagasse was pretreated with diluted
sulfuric acid and resulted in a 55% yield in relation to the initial
bagasse mass. In the acid–alkali pretreatment, there was a 30%
yield. Sugarcane bagasse contains around 20–24% lignin, 27–32%
hemicelluloses, 32–44% cellulose and 4.5–9.0% ashes (Soccol
et al., 2010). In the presented experiments, the acid treatment removed
around 45% of the initial mass, which is equivalent to the
hemicellulose fraction and the portion of cellulose fraction that
may undergo partial hydrolysis during treatment with diluted acid.
In addition to the hemicellulose fraction, the acid–alkali treatment
removed the lignin fraction, representing approximately 30% of the
biomass. Therefore, the final yield of 30% is compatible with a 70%
loss in mass and is equivalent to the cellulose fraction of the
bagasse.