Lignocellulosic Biomass to Value-Added Products

A special issue of Fermentation (ISSN 2311-5637). This special issue belongs to the section "Industrial Fermentation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 March 2024) | Viewed by 4320

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Biotechnology, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan
Interests: biofuels; value-added products

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Guest Editor
Department of Exact Science and Technology, State University of Santa Cruz Ilheus Brazil, Ilheus 45662-900, Brazil
Interests: solid state fermentation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Lignocellulosic biomass is a natural and ubiquitous resource from woody and nonwoody plants. It is the most abundantly available raw material on Earth for the production of value-added products, especially biofuels. It is mainly composed of two kinds of polysaccharides (cellulose and hemicellulose) and aromatic-rich polymers (lignin). These polysaccharides have five and six carbon sugars. When lignocellulosic biomass is hydrolyzed, it generates reducing sugars, phenolic compounds, organic acids and aldehydes. The exploitation of lignocellulosic biomass has come out with numerous bio-based chemicals and materials in the paper and pulp industry and biofuels. Almost all the products and chemicals are derived from the sugars in cellulose. It is the most economical and renewable feedstock for second-generation biofuels because it does not cause food scarcity. The structure of lignocellulosic biomass with its three components makes the processing of lignocellulose challenging. So, the production of biofuels and other value-added products from lignocellulose degradation needs the use of the coordinated metabolic activity of enzymes and microorganisms in combination with particular heat and chemicals. The growing universal demand for biofuels coaxed the formation and optimization of production strategies. Optimization in turn needs a detailed understanding of the metabolic pathways and microbial mechanisms behind the formation of each product of interest. Still, wide research is mandatory for the commercial production of a well-organized integrated biotransformation process for the production of lignocellulose-mediated products.

Dr. Muhammad Irfan
Dr. Marcelo Franco
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • lignocellulose pretreatment
  • saccharification
  • fermentation
  • bioethanol
  • biobutanol
  • value-added chemicals

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 1485 KiB  
Article
Saccharification of Agricultural Wastes and Clarification of Orange Juice by Penicillium rolfsii CCMB 714 Pectinase
by Kelly Menezes Macedo, Raquel Araújo Azevedo, Erik Galvão Paranhos da Silva, Thiago Pereira das Chagas, Luiz Carlos Salay, Ana Paula Trovatti Uetanabaro, Elizama Aguiar-Oliveira and Andréa Miura da Costa
Fermentation 2023, 9(10), 917; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation9100917 - 19 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1530
Abstract
Pectinases are enzymes used in several industrial processes. Seven agroindustrial wastes—jackfruit seed meal (Artocarpus heterophyllus), cocoa seed peel (Theobroma cacao), cocoa husks (Theobroma cacao), passion fruit husks (Passiflora edulis), mangosteen husks (Garcinia mangostana), [...] Read more.
Pectinases are enzymes used in several industrial processes. Seven agroindustrial wastes—jackfruit seed meal (Artocarpus heterophyllus), cocoa seed peel (Theobroma cacao), cocoa husks (Theobroma cacao), passion fruit husks (Passiflora edulis), mangosteen husks (Garcinia mangostana), malt residue (Hordeum vulgare) and the peach palm waste (Bactris gasipaes Kunth.)—were evaluated to produce a crude extract containing pectinase activity by Penicillium rolfsii CCMB 714. The jackfruit seed meal was chosen as the best substrate for solid-state fermentation, which was optimized with 4 mL of water as a wetting agent for 2 days at 35 °C and with a 0.5% nitrogen source, whereby the pectinase production increased by 44% (362.09 U/g). The obtained crude extract was characterized and applied to wastes saccharification and orange juice clarification. The pectinase showed better activity at a pH of 3.0 to 5.0 and 55 °C, it stably maintained over 80% of activity at 30–50 °C for up to 60 min and 1 mM CuSO4 increased the pectinase activity by 17%. The saccharification of agroindustrial wastes (cocoa husks, mangosteen husks and passion fruit husks) resulted in 126.55 µmol/mL of reducing sugars from passion fruit husks, which represents an increase of 126% after optimization (45 °C for 22 h). For the clarification of orange juice, it was possible to reduce the absorbance of the juice by 55%. These results elucidate the potential of the low-cost pectinase solution from P. rolfsii CCMB 714 cultivated in jackfruit seed meal for both the enzymatic pretreatment of plant biomass and the application in beverage industries. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lignocellulosic Biomass to Value-Added Products)
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20 pages, 3356 KiB  
Article
Valorization of Delonix regia Pods for Bioethanol Production
by Zafar Iqbal, Adarsh Siddiqua, Zahid Anwar and Muhammad Munir
Fermentation 2023, 9(3), 289; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation9030289 - 16 Mar 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2002
Abstract
Delonix regia (common name: Flame tree) pods, an inexpensive lignocellulosic waste matrix, were successfully used to produce value-added bioethanol. Initially, the potentiality of D. regia pods as a lignocellulosic biomass was assessed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), which revealed the presence of several [...] Read more.
Delonix regia (common name: Flame tree) pods, an inexpensive lignocellulosic waste matrix, were successfully used to produce value-added bioethanol. Initially, the potentiality of D. regia pods as a lignocellulosic biomass was assessed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), which revealed the presence of several functional groups belonging to cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, implying that D. regia pods could serve as an excellent lignocellulosic biomass. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Central Composite Design (CCD) were used to optimize pretreatment conditions of incubation time (10–70 min), H2SO4 concentration (0.5–3%), amount of substrate (0.02–0.22 g), and temperature (45–100 °C). Then, RSM-suggested 30 trials of pretreatment conditions experimented in the laboratory, and a trial using 0.16 g substrate, 3% H2SO4, 70 min incubation at 90 °C, yielded the highest amount of glucose (0.296 mg·mL−1), and xylose (0.477 mg·mL−1). Subsequently, the same trial conditions were chosen in the downstream process, and pretreated D. regia pods were subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis with 5 mL of indigenously produced cellulase enzyme (74 filter per unit [FPU]) at 50 °C for 72 h to augment the yield of fermentable sugars, yielding up to 55.57 mg·mL−1 of glucose. Finally, the released sugars were fermented to ethanol by Saccharomyces cerevisiae, yielding a maximum of 7.771% ethanol after 72 h of incubation at 30 °C. Conclusively, this study entails the successful valorization of D. regia pods for bioethanol production. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lignocellulosic Biomass to Value-Added Products)
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