Production of industrial solvents and chemicals from a renewable resource is quite appealing due to the dwindling fossil fuel reserves. It is essential to replace the utilization of plastic materials with biodegradable plastic materials like poly-lactic acid (PLA). In the current work, Pediococcus pentosaceus HLV1, a newly identified acetogenic strain, was used to produce LA from sugarcane field residue (SFR). One of the several lignocellulosic potential substrates that are readily available in tropical regions is SFR. SFR has a cellulose content of 40.3 3.5%, a hemicellulose content of 28.5 3.0%, and lignin content of 20.3 2.6%. Around 69% of the lignin and 73% of the hemicellulose were solubilized after the sequential dilute alkali and acid treatments. Cellulase was used to perform enzymatic saccharification of the pretreated substrate at a concentration of 10% (w/v), and produced 0.681of glucose per gram of pretreated biomass. 5 g/l of residual sugar and 61.5 g/l of LA were produced during the batch fermentation procedure. The actual fermentation procedure yielded a 1.12 g LA/g substrate used with a productivity of 0.86 g/L/h. HMF and furfural were reduced to 0.65 g/L and 0.15 g/L from 1.83 g/l to 0.91 g/l, respectively, after fermentation. In the polyphenols, the most inhibitory compounds vanillin and syringaldehyde were reduced to very low concentrations to 0.087 and 0.09 g/l from 0.284 to 1.536 g/l respectively. These compounds have not shown any inhibitory action on microbial growth and lactic acid production. The current study describes how SFR was sequentially acid pretreated and then enzymatically hydrolyzed to acquire the greatest amount of fermentable sugars, as well as how freshly isolated Pediococcus pentosaceus HLV1 was used it to produce lactic acid.
