LAUSR

There are around 9 million tons of sugarcane crop residue per year in Colombia that are not recovered but they have potential to make value-added products. It is necessary to know the residue components, especially those from hemicellulose, to clarify the type of process to obtain the hemicellulose monosaccharides and isolate them efficiently. In order to separate pure hemicelluloses, five processes of extraction from tops and leaves of CC 8592, CC 8475, and V 7151 sugarcane varieties were studied. After evaluating exposure to dewaxing using ethanol and chloroform-methanol mixtures, residues were subjected to different concentrations of hydrogen peroxide and acidified sodium chlorite to achieve delignification. Additionally, procedures of extraction were developed with sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, and precipitation. Chloroform-methanol dewaxing and sodium chlorite with sodium borohydride delignification allowed to achieve the highest extraction yield, with hemicellulose recovery ranging from 0.20-0.34 g hemicellulose/g dry residue in the varieties studied.