Design and performance of amphiphilic lignin derivatives in enzymatic hydrolysis of sweet sorghum bagasse for bioethanol production

Sweet sorghum bagasse (SSB) is potential feedstock for bioethanol production due to its natural abundance and high cellulose content (> 40%). This work compared the impact of three variables relative to the enzymatic hydrolysis of SSB kraft pulp. The three variables were the biosurfactant from lignin derivative known as amphiphilic lignin derivatives (A-LD), the enzyme loading level, and the hydrolysis time. These variables were optimized by response surface methodology (RSM) with a Box-Behnken design (BBD). The concentration of polyethylene glycol (PEG) 4000 was also optimized to compare it with the A-LD performance in the enzymatic hydrolysis process. After optimization, the A-LD produced a higher reducing sugar yield (RSY) (99.45%) than the PEG 4000. The difference in the predicted versus experimental values of the RSY was less than 4%, which means that the model was highly predictive. The adequacy of the model was confirmed by a regression value close to 1 for the A-LD assisted test. The result implies that the A-LD significantly improved the enzymatic hydrolysis performance to enhance the RSY. Moreover, the BBD is adequate and useful to identify the optimum concentration of surfactant.