Hydrolysis of agricultural waste to obtain reducing sugars using conventional and ultrasound-assisted technologies

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the hydrolysis of rice hulls to obtain reducing sugars by conventional and ultrasound-assisted acid hydrolysis. For this purpose, the methodology of experimental design was used to evaluating the influence of temperature, moisture content and concentration of phosphoric acid on the yield of reducing sugars. The yields at optimized conditions were of 141.1 and 162.0 g.kg^-1, for conventional and ultrasound-assisted hydrolysis, respectively. It was possible to obtain high yield using less acid and low temperature, in a manner that ultrasound can be used as a technology for process intensification.