Abstract
This study investigated the effects of hot-press pretreatment on sugar recovery from rice straw. Hot-pressed rice straw was evaluated using enzymatic hydrolysis. After hot-press pretreatment with 30 % moisture at 180 °C, 16 MPa, the glucose yield of hot-pressed rice straw was 73 % and the density of it was 1.3 g-wet/cm3. In addition, the sugar recovery increased to 92 % when the wet milling process was added before hot-pressing. Rice straw after the hot-press pretreatment can be stored for more than six months, without changing the sugar recovery rate. These results indicate that the hot-press pretreatment eliminates the need for drying the raw materials, improves the storability, reduces the volume of the rice straw, and has pretreatment effect for enzymatic hydrolysis.
