Thesis (M.Eng.)--Chulalongkorn University, 2008

Many agricultural countries including Thailand are the producers of various rubber wood products supplied to the whole global market. Rubber wood is a typical lignocellulose, resourse available for production of ethanol. Because of it excessive supply the rubber wood residues can be considered as a promising energy renewable source. Although direct combustion or gasification accompanying with burning has been employed as general means of such waste utilization there is a great deal of interest in utilizing and converting the lignocelluloses fraction to ethanol and other chemicals In this thesis, rubber wood was employed as a biomass raw material in the hydrothermal pretreatment process accompanying with enzymatic hydrolysis. Pulverized rubber wood was treated at 130–280°C using an autoclave with inner volume of 96 cm3. The glucose content in the treated liquid product was measured. The solid product was also analyzed for cellulose content and further treated with cellulase. The glucose yield was considered as an indicator for the effectiveness of the hydrothermal pretreatment. A reaction network model for the hydrothermal pretreatment was proposed with respect to the experimental results. Finally the reaction parameters which are rate constants were determined.