Ultrasound-Assisted Intensified Delignification of Sugarcane Bagasse in the Presence of Metal Salts and Hydrogen Peroxide

The present study focuses on using sugarcane bagasse (SCB) as a sustainable feedstock for utilization in biofuels with intensification studies based on using ultrasound, metal salts and hydrogen peroxide for effective removal of lignin.

An in-depth study for establishing the dependency of delignification using various approaches on the specific operating parameters revealed that 2% as H₂O₂ concentration, 1:25 as solid to solvent loading, 2:100 as molar ratio of metal salt to H₂O₂, 70 °C as temperature, 60% as ultrasound duty-cycle, 100 W as power, and 2 h time are optimized conditions for giving maximum delignification.

Ultrasound-assisted approach intensified the delignification in the conventional treatment with H₂O₂ from 39.81 to 52.29% in 2 h. Further use of TiO₂ in the combined ultrasound/H₂O₂ approach yielded 63.88% as the delignification of SCB. Characterization techniques as XRD and FTIR used to compare the features of conventional and ultrasound-assisted treatment in the presence of metal salts and H₂O₂ revealed that the ultrasound-assisted treatment of SCB offered better characteristics confirming a higher delignification

The overall results demonstrated an effective protocol for the intensified delignification of SCB using advanced oxidative processes and ultrasonic reactors also elucidating the optimum conditions.