Muhammad Irfan, Muhammad Gulsher, Sajjad Abbas, Quratualain Syed, Muhammad Nadeem and Shahjahan Baig

pp. 397 - 404

Abstract

The present work deals with the delignification of wheat straw and sugarcane bagasse with different pretreatment
techniques followed by saccharification with commercial and indigenously produced cellulase enzymes. 100 g of sugar cane
bagasse and whaet straw were treated with various concentrations of H₂O₂
 (1-5% v/v) and its combination with 2% NaOH
for one hour under steam at 30 psi. Sugarcane bagasse was 88% delignified with 5% H₂O₂
 + 2% NaOH whereas wheat straw
showed 51% delignification with 3% H₂O₂
 + 2% NaOH. Moreover the saccharification with commercial cellulase enzyme was
found to be 33.6% and 63.3% with pretreated wheat straw and sugarcane bagasse, respectively. However, very low levels of
saccharification (6-14%) were found with indigenously produced cellulase enzyme.

Keywords

• chemical pretreatment
• lignocellulosic biomass
• saccharification