LAUSR

The purpose of this work was to use a microwave-assisted technique to improve and accelerate lignin removal from rice straw biomass. Using a Box-Behnken experimental design, the effect of four critical process parameters, viz. microwave power (480-800 W), irradiation time (4-12 min), bleaching solution concentration (0.4-3.0 %), and bleaching time (1-5 h) on the delignification (%) was investigated, and the process was optimised using response surface methodology. The experimental data best fitted a quadratic model with an R2 of 0.9964. The optimized value of process parameters (in aforementioned sequence) was found to be 671 W, 8.66 min, 2.67 %, and 1h respectively, for the best delignification of 93.51 percent.The absence of lignin peaks (1516 and 1739 cm-1) was corroborated by deconstructed morphological structure and higher crystallinity in the optimised delignified sample (53.7 %).