Integrated xylooligosaccharides production from imidazole-treated sugarcane bagasse with application of in house produced enzymes.

The application of biorefinery concepts to produce different value-added biomolecules such as xylooligosaccharides (XOs) generates economical competitive, sustainable and environmentally friendly processes. The objective of this work was to develop an efficient imidazole-pretreatment process of sugarcane bagasse (SB) and the use of the obtained hemicellulose fraction in the production of XOs with the application of in house produced xylanolytic enzymes using SB as substrate, under a biorefinery approach. SB imidazole pretreatment allowed the recovery of a hemicellulose rich fraction (34%) with 91.2% of delignification. Xylanase production by Aspergillus niger reached 53.1 U·mL ^-1 at 120 h. The application of produced xylanases in the enzymatic hydrolysis of extracted xylan, allowed the production of 6.06 g·L ^-1 of XOs, where xylotriose represented >70%. Great perspectives are viewed for the implementation of mixed processes in a sustainable closed cycle to produce biomolecules with concomitant valorization of subproducts from SB chain.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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