Sawdust, a product of the forest industry is mostly left untreated as solid waste. This phenomenon is well observed along the Lagos Lagoon in Nigeria where hundreds of trees are cut daily by sawmills to deliver wood for mainly the furniture industry. Different types of trees are utilized in this manner and the massive amounts of sawdust produced as a result of these activities are polluting the environment causing health risks for humans and animals. Cellulose, a glucose bio-polymer is a major structural component of sawdust and could be developed as a renewable energy resource should the cellulose be degraded into glucose, a fermentable sugar. This saccharification was done with Aspergillus niger cellulase and to make the cellulose more susceptible for cellulase action the sawdust was delignified with hydrogen peroxide. Both delignified and non-delignified sawdust were treated with the cellulase enzyme at incubation temperatures of 30°C, 40°C, 50°C, and 60°C. Delignification proved to be effective as an increased amount of sugar was released from all delignified sawdust materials relative to the non-delignified materials when saccharified with A. niger cellulase. Most of the materials were degraded at an incubation temperature of 40°C and 50°C and the highest percentage saccharification of 58% was obtained during the degradation of delignifed cellulose from the tree, Ricindendron heudelotti

Lignin, being highly resistant, needs to be eliminated in the process of extraction of soluble reducing sugar and bioethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass. In the present work, pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse (SCB) was performed using NaOH of various concentrations (1-5%) to facilitate delignification. The hydrolysis efficiency of pretreated SCB was evaluated at different reaction times by the production of reducing sugar using the Cellic CTec2 enzyme. The maximum cellulose content of 57.6% and lignin removal of 62.04% were observed with 2% sodium hydroxide at 121°C autoclaved for 60 min. The hemicellulose content decreased with increasing NaOH concentration with the maximum decrease of 13.6% from native bagasse having 26.5% xylan content. The microstructure, morphology, and chemical composition of SCB were analyzed using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR), and XRD. The hydrolysis with 10 FPU.g-1 of enzyme at 48 h of reaction time shows a maximum yield of 12.34 g.L-1 corresponding to 55.53 ± 0.45% at 2% NaOH pretreated SCB. This study claims that lignin components exhibited the highest susceptibility to NaOH pretreatment, which directly affects enzymatic hydrolysis.

Lignin, being highly resistant, needs to be eliminated in the process of extraction of soluble reducing sugar and bioethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass. In the present work, pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse (SCB) was performed using NaOH of various concentrations (1-5%) to facilitate delignification. The hydrolysis efficiency of pretreated SCB was evaluated at different reaction times by the production of reducing sugar using the Cellic CTec2 enzyme. The maximum cellulose content of 57.6% and lignin removal of 62.04% were observed with 2% sodium hydroxide at 121°C autoclaved for 60 min. The hemicellulose content decreased with increasing NaOH concentration with the maximum decrease of 13.6% from native bagasse having 26.5% xylan content. The microstructure, morphology, and chemical composition of SCB were analyzed using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR), and XRD. The hydrolysis with 10 FPU.g-1 of enzyme at 48 h of reaction time shows a maximum yield of 12.34 g.L-1 corresponding to 55.53 ± 0.45% at 2% NaOH pretreated SCB. This study claims that lignin components exhibited the highest susceptibility to NaOH pretreatment, which directly affects enzymatic hydrolysis.