The Application of Détente Instantanée Contrôlée (DIC) Technology to Minimize the Degradation Rate of Glucose Harun Sarip 1, , Mohd Azemi Mohd Noor 2 and Karim Allaf 3 1, 2 Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2 Universite de La Rochelle, France Abstract. The most influential method for the production of glucose from biomass materials to-date was via the enzymatic processing system. However, the dilute acid processing system has recently gained popularity. In our present work, the DIC technology was employed to study the rate of glucose degradation into potential glucose degradation components such as 5-hydroxymethyl furfural, levulinic acid, acetic acid and formic acid. A model material of sago pith waste was used in this study during two types of thermal treatments to produce glucose. An extended hydrolysis process was done and monitored for the presence of the said glucose degradation products. The existence of levulinic acid, acetic acid and furfural was monitored as total indicator of glucose degradation chemicals. Result obtained from this study shows that the DIC heat exchange rate constant was 80 times higher than the conventional dilute acid hydrolysis process. In addition, the substrate cooling down to below 100°C was achieved in less than a second. Maintaining the temperature of glucose at below 100°C during the presence of dilute acid was found to contribute to a lesser amount of selected degradation indicators. Maximum glucose yield during single thermal treatment was 85% of the total polysaccharides available during treatment at 0.7 MPa for 5 minutes. Total degradation indicator for the treatment was found to be less than 0.8% of available polysaccharides as compared to about 10% with conventional thermal treatment. Keywords: DIC technology, dilute acid hydrolysis, biomass, degradation, kinetics 1. Introduction In principle, biomass containing cellulose, hemicelluloses and starch can be used to produce glucose with some modification of a certain initial process to ensure high quality of glucose obtained from process. Currently, the technologies that utilize cellulose as polysaccharides sources are progressing to be commercially significant including with enzymatic and chemical hydrolysis using thermal processing [1], [2]. Previously, it was shown that degradation of glucose was prevalent in the range beyond 160°C [3]. Present work was concentrated to the dilute acid hydrolysis (DAH) technology and was designed to study the interim thermal processing gap with materials containing polysaccharides (cellulose, traces of hemicelluloses, and starch) to convert them into glucose. Based on this, the work will focus on the area of a specific feedstock (sago pith waste, SPW), with thermal pre-treatment at various operating conditions to study the characteristic of material and its degradation products. The integration of Instant Controlled Pressure Drop (French: Détente Instantanée Contrôlée (DIC)) technology as pre-treatment process was done to capitalize unique DIC process with fast heating (due to saturated steam) and exceptionally fast cooling (due to a pressure drop towards vacuum). Combinations of both steps were used for hydrolysis of starch to glucose and for fast stopping the degradation of glucose from occurs.  Corresponding author. Tel.: + 606 551 2000; fax: +606 551 2001 E-mail address: harun@unikl.edu.my International Proceedings of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering, Vol. 88 (2015) DOI: 10.7763/IPCBEE. 2015. V88. 6 29