Agro-industrial waste hydrolysate as carbon source for azaphilone colorants production

• Grant number: 22/12639-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2022
• End date: March 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Chemical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Valéria de Carvalho Santos Ebinuma
• Grantee: Leonardo Henrique Rotta
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas (FCFAR). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/06686-8 - Biotechnological process for the development of natural colorants from microbial sources for industrial application: phase II, AP.BIOEN.JP2
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/02968-7 - Azaphilone colorant applied in textile matrices, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

The industry has taken actions to color different types of products, improving the consumer acceptance, and thus, the product sales. The additives applied for this purpose are the colorants, which can be synthetic/artificial, nature-identical and natural colorants. In the last few years, the natural colorants have gained importance to the marked; however, its production price is one of the main bottlenecks. In addition, the development of a more sustainable process is of industrial interest. So, the use of agro-industrial residues can provide low-cost raw material for systems and processes that apply the circular economy, which will allow to maintain carbon cycle for longer in the production process. Furthermore, the use of agro-industrial residues can contribute to the reduction of residues and, consequently, prevent environmental contamination, health diseases, ecological damage and other related-problems. Several residues from the food industry and/or agricultural such as sugarcane bagasse and straw are rich in cellulose and xylan, which after hydrolysis, are converted into glucose and xylose, respectively. These fermentable sugars can be used as carbon sources to obtain bioproducts of commercial value, for instance, natural colorants. In this way, in this work the hydrolysis process of sugarcane bagasse and straw will be studied to apply their sugars in the production of natural colorants by Talaromyces amestolkiae in orbital shaker.