Delignification of Cotton Stalks Using Sodium Cumene Sulfonate for Bioethanol Production

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of hydrotropic delignification of cotton stalk on sugar release performance for bioethanol production. In this study, different alkyl benzene sulfonates were screened to select the best pretreatment agent, and the effectiveness of pretreatment was evaluated by enzymatic saccharification. Sodium cumene sulfonate was found to be the best hydrotropic agent in terms of reducing sugar yield. Parameters such as hydrotrope concentration, biomass loading and incubation time were optimized by adopting a central composite design. Under optimized pretreatment conditions, 0.211 g reducing sugar/g of dry biomass was obtained. Reusability of aqueous hydrotrope solution was also demonstrated.