Production of Fermentable Sugars from Cassava Stem using Hybrid Pretreatment Technology

One of the crucial steps in the enzymatic hydrolysis of biomass is pretreatment. We investigated the applicability of a hybrid pretreatment method, This involved acid treatment followed by alkali before the production of fermentable sugars from cassava stem. The substrate was initially treated with acid (1% oxalic acid at 100 °C for 2 h), followed by treatment with a 10% NaOH–urea mixture (by mixing 5 g each of NaOH and urea in 100 mL of water) at 100 °C for 1 h. A cellulose recovery of 98.55% was obtained with the acid-alkali pretreatment method.