Conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into monomeric carbohydrates is economically beneficial and suitable for sustainable production of biofuels. Hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass using high acid concentration results in decomposition of sugars into fermentative inhibitors. Thus, the main aim of this work was to investigate the optimum hydrolysis conditions for sorghum brown midrib IS11861 biomass to maximize the pentose sugars yield with minimized levels of fermentative inhibitors at low acid concentrations. Process parameters investigated include sulfuric acid concentration (0.2–1 M), reaction time (30–120 min) and temperature (80–121 °C). At the optimum condition (0.2 M sulfuric acid, 121 °C and 120 min), 97.6% of hemicellulose was converted into xylobiose (18.02 mg/g), xylose (225.2 mg/g), arabinose (20.2 mg/g) with low concentration of furfural (4.6 mg/g). Furthermore, the process parameters were statistically optimized using response surface methodology based on central composite design. Due to the presence of low concentration of fermentative inhibitors, 78.6 and 82.8% of theoretical ethanol yield were attained during the fermentation of non-detoxified and detoxified hydrolyzates, respectively, using Pichia stipitis 3498 wild strain, in a techno-economical way.

Subcritical water (SCW) treatment has gained enormous attention as an environmentally friendly technique for organic matter and an attractive reaction medium for a variety of applications. In this work, hydrolysis of cellulose was studied under SCW conditions in a batch reactor to attain total reducing sugars (TRS) within a reaction temperature and time range of 150 to 250 °C and 10–60 min, respectively. From the experimental results, the highest yield of TRS was 45.04% as obtained at 200 °C and 20 min of hydrolysis time. The characterisation techniques, namely X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy were used as to determine the structural and compositional changes in the hydrolysed material. Reaction parameters such as temperature, time, and solute loading have been optimised using response surface methodology based on a central composite design. From ANOVA analysis, it was described that the second-order response surface model is highly significant as per Fisher's F-test and P-value. A first-order reaction kinetic model was formulated to describe the hydrolysis of cellulose for TRS formation and decomposition. For TRS formation, the activation energy and pre-exponential factor of the Arrhenius equation was found to be 29.16 kJ mol⁻¹ and 0.088 min⁻¹ for 60 min, respectively.