Dilute Acid Pretreatment of Wheat Straw: A Predictive Model for Energy Consumption Using Response Surface Methodology

Response surface methodology was used to study the effects of parameters namely, time, temperature, and solid content and to optimize the process conditions for the minimum energy consumption in dilute acid pretreatment. Box-Behnken design using response surface methodology was employed. Effects of time and temperature are significant at the significant level of α = 0.05. Longer time and higher temperature result in higher power energy consumption. The best optimal values of the process conditions are time 14–21 min and temperature 129–139 °C.