Theoretical modeling and experimental validation of hydrodynamic cavitation reactor with a Venturi tube for sugarcane bagasse pretreatment

• Published in: Bioresource technology 2020-09, Vol.311, p.123540-123540, Article 123540
• Main Authors: Bimestre, Thiago Averaldo, Júnior, José Antonio Mantovani, Botura, César Augusto, Canettieri, ElianaVieira, Tuna, Celso Eduardo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alkaline pretreatment; Hydrodynamic cavitation; Response surface methodology (RSM); Sugarcane bagasse; Venturi tube
• ISSN: 0960-8524; 1873-2976
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2020.123540

•Theoretical modeling of a hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) reactor with Venturi tube.•HC assisted alkaline pretreatment was employed for lignin removal.•Pretreatment was statistically optimized and experimentally verified.•Under the optimal condition, the maximum lignin removal was 56.01%. A hydrodynamic cavitation reactor with a Venturi tube was modeled through a computational fluid dynamics approach in order to evaluate the influence of pressure ratio, diameter and length of the throat zone. A cavitation reactor equipped with a Venturi tube was built in accordance with the computational modeling results. Hydrodynamic cavitation assisted alkaline pretreatment was performed to evaluate the influence of NaOH concentration (1–5%), the weight to volume percentage of solid in liquid (1–5%) and the reaction time (20–60 min.) in the lignin removal. The response surface methodology was used to optimize pretreatment parameters for maximum lignin removal. The optimal condition was 4.90% of NaOH and a solid weight percentage in liquid of 2.03% in 58.33 min, resulting in a maximum removal of 56.01% of lignin. Hydrodynamic cavitation can be easy to employ, an efficient and promissory pretreatment tool.