Abstract
Saccharification of cellulosic biomass is important from the perspective of food protection in order to produce bio-based fuel as ethanol from non-food resources. Therefore, it can become a new chemical industrial process as an alternative exhaustible resource instead of oil. It is well known that saccharification from biomass can be accomplished by enzymatic reaction or sulfuric acid method. However, they have some disadvantages, for example, the former reaction is slow and uneconomical, and the latter method cannot recycle the liquid acid catalyst. Ultrasonic wave has a physical action as stirring and a chemical action as radical reaction by selecting the frequency appropriately. In this study, saccharification of cellulosic biomass was investigated with various recyclable solid acid catalysts. Cellulose was saccharified to low-molecular sugar with the solid acid catalyst under irradiation of an ultrasonic wave. It was found that the saccharification ratio depends on the property of the solid catalyst.
