Co-production of xylo-oligosaccharides, xylose and cellulose nanofibrils from sugarcane bagasse

Author(s)

Marcondes, Wilian F. ^[1] ; Milagres, Adriane M. F. ^[2] ; Arantes, Valdeir ^[1]

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Lorena Sch Engn, Dept Biotechnol, Biocatalysis & Bioprod Lab, Lorena, SP - Brazil

^[2] Univ Sao Paulo, Lorena Sch Engn, Dept Biotechnol, Biochem Lab, Lorena, SP - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: Journal of Biotechnology; v. 321, p. 35-47, SEP 10 2020.
• Web of Science Citations: 5

Abstract

This work investigated the integration of a two-stage hydrothermal treatment for production of xylooligosaccharides (XOS), a high-value product, into the isolation process of cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) from sugarcane bagasse. Under optimized conditions, the first stage yielded a XOS-rich, high purity hydrolysate and in the second stage only a xylose-rich hydrolysate could be obtained at high purity. The resulting solid cellulosic fraction was delignified and bleached to obtain a cellulose-rich pulp, which was mechanically defibrillated by disc ultra-refining to CNF. Except for the viscosity, the sugarcane CNF showed properties (i.e., thermal stability, crystallinity and diameter size) comparable or superior to the CNF prepared from commercial bleached eucalyptus Kraft pulp. In conclusion, the integration of the two-stage hydrothermal treatment is an efficient and promising strategy to obtain hemicellulose-derived high-value co-products in the process of isolating CNF. In addition, lignin was also recovered as a co-product with yield comparable to other biomass fractionation approaches. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/02862-5 - NANOCEL - development of enzyme mixtures for the preparation of nanocelluloses by a biohibrid process
• Grantee: Valdeir Arantes
• Support Opportunities: Program for Research on Bioenergy (BIOEN) - Young Investigators Grants