*2.2. Lignocellulosic Biomass Pretreatment*

The 5 g of dried and pulverised (>2 mm particles) sweet sorghum bagasse (SSB) and corncob (CC) samples were chemically pretreated with alkali (2 g of Ca(OH)<sup>2</sup> and 1.25 g of NaOH) according to protocols described by Panagiotopoulos et al. [21] and Beukes and Pletschke [10], respectively. After pretreatment, SSB and CC samples were filtered and washed with Milli-Q water until the filtrates had a pH of 7.0. The samples were air dried and stored in an airtight container until use.
