Comparative assessment of autoclave- and microwave-facilitated seawater pretreatments for the enhancement of sugar recovery from banana pseudostem

Abstract This study evaluated the efficacy of optimized autoclave-assisted seawater (A-SW) and microwave-assisted seawater (M-SW) pretreatments in improving sugar production from banana pseudostem. Subsequently, the structural changes of banana pseudostem, along with inhibitory compound concentrations were assessed under the conditions optimized for A-SW and M-SW pretreatment models. High coefficient of determination (R 2 ) value (> 0.82) was obtained for both A-SW and M-SW. In addition, comparable reducing sugar of 0.41 ± 0.01 g/g and glucose yield of 0.24 ± 0.001 g/g were obtained from the optimized A-SW pretreatment, compared with the reducing sugar yield of 0.23 ± 0.004 g/g and glucose yield of 0.14 ± 002 g/g from the optimized M-SW regime. Furthermore, the A-SW high pretreatment efficiency was confirmed by changes in the biomass structure and low concentration of inhibitory compounds. Therefore, the potential use of abundant and sustainable seawater-based in this study with different heating mechanisms for pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass provides a novel strategy to reduce the costs associated with the application of chemicals and scarce fresh water in lignocellulosic biorefineries.