Electrogenerated alkaline hydrogen peroxide for rice straw pretreatment to enhance enzymatic hydrolysis

In this work, alkaline hydrogen peroxide (AHP) solution with 1 wt% H2O2 was electrogenerated by oxygen reduction with a current efficiency of 75.2% in a home-made gas diffusion electrode-based electrochemical cell and used for rice straw pretreatment (0.1 g H2O2/g rice straw, 10% (w/v) biomass loading, 55 °C, 2 h). Results showed that the AHP pretreatment removed 97.56% of the initial lignin, 85.75% of the initial hemicellulose, and only 0.56% of the initial cellulose, and the specific surface area and porosity of the AHP pretreated rice straw (AHP-RS) were greatly increased. Saccharification results showed that after 48 h of enzymatic hydrolysis AHP-RS achieved a 3.2-fold increase in reducing sugar concentration compared to the untreated rice straw (5.81 and 1.81 g L−1), highlighting the potential use of this AHP solution for lignocellulose pretreatment.