Pretreatment of lignocellulosic materials with hydrogen peroxide in presence of manganese compounds.

Pretreatment of lignocellulosic materials such as newspaper, rice straw, pulp waste, and municipal solid waste with hydrogen peroxide in the presence of manganese compounds greatly enhances their susceptibility to enzymatic saccharification. This pretreatment can be achieved using rather mild conditions with only a minimal decrease in the recovery and little change in composition. Manganese salts in this hydrogen peroxide pretreatment works effectively in particular when the concentration of hydrogen peroxide is relatively low. The susceptibility of hydrogen-peroxide-pretreated substrate to enzymatic saccharification increases with increasing the molar ratio of manganes to hydrogen peroxide up to 1 : 100.