Destoxificação de furfural presente em licor lignocelulósico por meio da adsorção via carvão ativado

Abstract

Bioproducts of financial viable values, such as the second generation ethanol, have been produced and used as a consequence of the environmental problems caused by the fossil fuels combined with the large disposal of agroindustrial products. The production of second generation ethanol is carried out by the reuse of lignocellulosic materials, since these have significant amounts of sugars subsequently used in the fermentation process. Native of the coastal region of Brazil, cashew is one of the fruits most consumed by Brazilians. About 250 thousand tons of almonds and 2 million tons of peduncle are produced annually. However, much of the peduncle production is lost or often unused, resulting in a waste of 85%. The peduncle cashew bagasse initially passes through a pretreatment through acid hydrolysis to ensure the separation of its constituents. Nevertheless, during the hydrolysis, undesirable products are released into the fermentation process, such as acetic acid, 5- hydroxymethylfurfural and furfural. This work has as main objective the detoxification of furfural by adsorption using activated carbon as the main adsorbent. The adsorption studies were conducted in a batch operating system using a 0.1% furfural synthetic solution at pH = 4.The effect of the adsorbent mass ratio per adsorbate volume through time was evaluated. Using a mass of 5 g of adsorvent, the activated carbon adsorbed 88.5 ± 1.9% of the furfural present in the synthetic solution. Kinetic studies were conducted and it was found that the time for the reaction to reach equilibrium was approximately 15 minutes. The pulverized activated carbon was very efficient in the process of adsorption of furfural, removing 91.3% of the fermentative inhibitor derived from the bagasse acidic hydrolysis