Pretreatment of Kenaf Core by Combined Electron Beam Irradiation and Water Steam for Enhanced Hydrolysis

We have investigated the combined pretreatment of electron beam irradiation (EBI) and water steam as a kenaf core pretreatment process. After each sample was exposed to electron beam dose ranging from 50 to 1,000 kGy, the irradiated sample was treated by water steam using an autoclave for 5-h at 120 o C. The pretreated samples were char- acterized using FTIR-ATR and XRD. FTIR spectra and XRD analysis of nonpretreated and pretreated samples confirm that crystallinity changes were observed before and after the pretreatment. The crystallinity index (CrI) was increased from 50.6% for nonpretreated sample 55.0% for 500 kGy exposed sample. And then, we analyzed sugar yield that is the amount of produced mono-saccharides in pretreated sample by enzymatic hydrolysis; an enzyme activity rate was 70 FPU/mL and 40 CBU/mL, and the loading time was 24, 48 and 72-h. The highest sugar yield was 83.9% at 500 kGy after 72-h for enzymatic hydrolysis. The sugar yield of enzymatic hydrolysis for pretreatment samples was increased as doses are subsequently changed to 100, 200 and 300 kGy, allowing to give 50.8%, 58.6% and 67.9%, respectively.