Pretreatment of garden biomass using Fenton’s reagent: influence of Fe2+ and H2O2 concentrations on lignocellulose degradation

Garden biomass (gb) is defined as low density and heterogeneous waste fraction of garden rubbish like grassclippings, pruning, flowers, branches, weeds; roots. gb is generally different from other types of biomass. gb ismostly generated through maintenance of green areas. gb can be processed for bio energy production as itcontains considerably good amount of cellulose and hemicellulose. however, pretreatment is necessary to delignifyand facilitate disruption of cellulosic moiety. the aim of the present investigation was to pretreat gb using fenton’sreagent and to study the influence of fe2+ and h2o2 concentrations on degradation of lignin and cellulose. the datawere statistically analyzed using anova and numerical point prediction tool of minitab release 14 to optimize differentprocess variables such as temperature, concentration of fe2+ and h2o2. the results of the present investigation showedthat fenton’s reagent was effective on gb, however, concentration of fe2+ and h2o2 play crucial role in determining theefficiency of pretreatment. an increase in h2o2 concentration in fenton’s reagent significantly increased the rateof cellulose and lignin degradation in contrast to increasing concentration of fe2+ ion which led to a decrease inlignocellulosic degradation.