Hydrothermal pretreatment of ulva pertusa kjellman using microwave irradiation for enhanced enzymatic hydrolysis

Abstract

The green algae have cellulose as a main structural component of their cell wall and the cellulose content in green algae is much higher than other marine algae such as brown algae and red algae. Furthermore, green algae do not contain lignin in their cell wall and store starch as food in their plastids. Thus, it was investigated that the effect of hydrothermal pretreatment process utilizing microwave irradiation for Ulva pertusa Kjellman, a division of green algae, which is expected to be utilized for bioenergy production, on the enzymatic hydrolysis. The hydrothermal temperature have an effect on the pretreatment of Ulva pertusa Kjellman, but the effect of power of microwave irradiation is negligible. The rate of enzymatic hydrolysis was increased as the hydrothermal temperature increased until 140 oC. The enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated Ulva pertusa Kjellman under the optimum pretreatment conditions (50 W of microwave irradiation power and 150 oC of hydrothermal temperature) with cellulase, ï¿1/2-amylase, and Novozyme 188 having ï¿1/2-glucosidase acitivity resulted in the saccharification of 96 wt% of total carbohydrate in Ulva pertusa Kjellman during 3 hrs, while it took 24 hrs for the enzymatic hydrolysis of untreated Ulva pertusa Kjellman. It confirmed that the hydrothermal pretreatment was effective on Ulva pertusa Kjellman for the enzymatic hydrolysis.