Catalytic treatment of rapeseed straw for enhanced production of furfural and glucose for bioethanol production

Abstract Ethanol produced from renewable biomass, such as lignocellulosic feedstock, is one of the most promising future biofuels. In this paper, rapeseed straw was tested as an abundant and cost-effective renewable resource material for the production of cellulosic glucose. Pre-treatment of this material is an important step to improve the efficiency of subsequent cellulose hydrolysis. In this study, we used two pre-treatment methods – hydrothermochemical and ultrasound. Studies have shown that, in the initial hydrothermal pre-treatment of rapeseed straw, Al2(SO4)3 may be used as an efficient catalyst, at least in procedures for obtaining glucose. An increase in the amount of this catalyst was accompanied by higher yields of both furfural and glucose. Additional pre-treatment of lignocellulosic residue with ultrasound resulted in considerable improvements in the results from further enzymatic hydrolysis. The application of two enzymes at the hydrolysis stage also increased the amount of glucose obtained. It was shown that the additional use of ultrasound increased the glucose amount by 21–29 % after enzymatic hydrolysis with two types of enzymes.