Optimization of cellulose hydrolysis in the presence of biomass‐derived sulfonated catalyst in microwave reactor using response surface methodology

The optimization of cellulose hydrolysis in a microwave reactor (MWR) in the presence of bamboo-derived sulfonated catalyst was studied through a response surface methodology (RSM). Three-factor and three-level Box-Behnken design was employed to study the effects of hydrolysis temperature, hydrolysis time, and catalyst to substrate ratio on total converted cellulose and glucose yield. Quadratic models were proposed for both responses. The respective analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the proposed quadratic models could be used to navigate the design space. The optimum hydrolysis conditions were found to be hydrolysis temperature of 175 °C, hydrolysis time of 74 min, and catalyst to substrate ratio of 1.25 g/g. Under these conditions, the total amount of converted cellulose and glucose yield was 79.4% and 61.1%, respectively. Validation of the models indicated that the predicted values were in a good agreement with the experimental results.