• KSBB Journal
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.527-532
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• 2009

Lignocellulose represents a key sustainable source of biomass for transformation into biofuels and bio-based products. Unfortunately, lignocellulosic biomass is highly recalcitrant to biotransformation, both microbial and enzymatic, which limits its use and prevents. As a result, effective pretreatment strategies are necessary. The vast majority of pretreatment strategies have focused on achieving a reduction of lignin content. In this work, an ethanosolv pretreatment has been evaluated for extracting lignin from barley straw. 75% ethanol was used as a pretreatment solvent to extract lignin from barley straw. The influence on delignification of three independent variables are temperature, time, catalyst (1 M $H_2SO_4$) dose. The best pretreatment condition observed was $180^{\circ}C$, 120 min, 0.2% $H_2SO_4$ and delignification was 38%. A combined roasting and ethanosolv, 2-step pretreatment, was developed in order to improve the delignification. Roasting didn't increase the delignification but reduced the pretreatment time. X-ray diffraction results indicated that these physical changes enhance the enzymatic digestibility in the ethanosolv treated barley straw. The cellulose in the pretreated barley straw becomes more crystalline without undergoing ethanosolv.