Pretreatment of Yam Peels with Alkaline Hydrogen Peroxide to Enhance Enzymatic Hydrolysis for Bioethanol Production

Abstract

The effectiveness of alkaline hydrogen peroxide (AHP) as a suitable choice of pretreatment for the conversion of yam peels to reducing sugars using cellulase enzyme for hydrolysis and subsequent ethanol production was determined. The effects of three variables on the chemical composition and reducing sugar production from yam peels were determined using one factor at a time (OFAT) method namely; hydrogen peroxide concentration (%v/v), pretreatment time (minutes) and pretreatment temperature (ᵒC). From the results obtained, it was observed that a significant (P<0.05) amount of reducing sugars were lost during pretreatment of yam peels. The untreated group which was only physically pretreated (milled), however, yielded a significantly higher (P<0.05) reducing sugar concentration of 21.33±0.02mg/ml after 48hours enzymatic hydrolysis, while the highest reducing sugar concentration of 4.22±0.02mg/ml was liberated using 0.75%v/v alkaline hydrogen peroxide concentration for 60minutes at 50ᵒC. Therefore, pretreatment of biomass with alkaline hydrogen peroxide may be more suitable for feedstocks with higher lignin contents than yam peels.