ENHANCING ENZYMATIC DIGESTIBILITY OF BAMBOO BY FUNGAL PRETREATMENT

Bamboo, as one of the most abundant cellulosic materials in China, has a great potential to be used for bioenergy production. However, with a high content of free sugars and starch, it is susceptible to be attacked by termites and decay fungi. In this research, four bamboo species were biopretreated with six species of fungi. The relationship between cellulose-to-glucose conversion yield (CGCY) of the pretreated substrates and fungi species, pretreatment time, and culture medium were tested. The results indicated that some tested fungi could significantly improve the CGCY after pretreatment. The CGCY increased from 2.4 (raw untreated bamboo) to 26.0 %. The enzymatic digestibility of bamboo pretreated by fungi that were cultured on sand & sawdust medium were better than that cultured on potato dextrose agar medium. It was feasible to treat bamboo species with fungi for the saccharification.