Detoxification of hemicellulose-enriched hydrolysate from sugarcane bagasse by activated carbon and macroporous adsorption resin.

Hemicellulose-derived sugars, especially xylose and xylooligosaccharide (XOS), obtained from lignocellulosic biomass can promote further applications in alternative chemical, food, and health care industries. In this study, a hemicellulose-rich hydrolysate was extracted by the hydrothermal pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse at 175 °C. The two-step combination process of activated carbon and macroporous adsorption resin demonstrated a high efficiency of removal in terms of total byproducts (hydroxymethylfurfural, furfural, lactic acid, formic acid, acetic acid, levulinic acid, and succinic acid) and phenolic content with 70.9% and 92.0%, respectively. This synergistic process achieved a higher purity of total sugar (89.7%) than the single detoxification processes with activated carbon and macroporous resin (83.6% and 84.3%, respectively). Moreover, detoxification by activated carbon achieved the removal of the total byproducts in the range of 47.1 to 63.9%, particularly the removal of hydroxymethylfurfural and furfural under the condition from 5 to 10% (w/v) activated carbon loading and temperature at 4–70 °C for 4 h. Using macroporous adsorption resin affected the removal of the total phenolic content in the range of 68.3 to 98.4% with high loss of XOS sugar under conditions from 2 to 20% (w/v) resin loading at 25 °C for 1 h. This work provides a simple process for the detoxification of hemicellulose-rich hydrolysates by adsorbent materials from hydrothermal sugarcane bagasse processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]