Article révisé par les pairs
Résumé : Untreated Eucalyptus meal is completely nonreactive toward celluloytic enzymes. Elimination of an important fraction of the hemicelluloses by refluxing with dilute acid increases only very slightly the yield in glucose (from 0% to 2% after 4 days). Pretreatment with HClO-NaClO at room temperature, on the contrary, results in important increase of the reactivity when performed between pH 7 and 9. The efficiency of this pretreatment results from the elimination of an important fraction of the lignin with minor modification of the chemical structure of the cellulose and without reorganization of the substrate at the supramolecular level.