A Prior Biological Delignification Treatment As an Aid for the Hydrothermal Pretreatment of Sugarcane Straw

The pretreatment is a critical step for lignocellulosic biomass enzymatic hydrolysis, bearing a significant economic weight on the process of producing biomass sugar syrups. This study carried out a thorough investigation of the effect of a prior biological pretreatment (BPT) on the hydrothermal pretreatment (HPT) efficiency, carried out under different severity conditions, to promote the enzymatic hydrolysis of sugarcane straw. Among the microorganisms studied for BPT, Pleurotus ostreatus was more effective, as it showed high selectivity for removing lignin and promoted higher cellulose digestibility, being selected to be combined with HPT. The sole effect of the HPT treatment, at 170 °C for 40 min (combined severity factor of 0.446), promoted high hemicellulose removal and the following enzymatic hydrolysis resulted in a 68.3