Lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) is the most abundantly available bioresource amounting to about a global yield of up to 1.3 billion tons per year. The hydrolysis of LCB results in the release of various reducing sugars which are highly valued in the production of biofuels such as bioethanol and biogas, various organic acids, phenols, and aldehydes. The majority of LCB is composed of biological polymers such as cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, which are strongly associated with each other by covalent and hydrogen bonds thus forming a highly recalcitrant structure. The presence of lignin renders the bio-polymeric structure highly resistant to solubilization thereby inhibiting the hydrolysis of cellulose and hemicellulose which presents a significant challenge for the isolation of the respective bio-polymeric components. This has led to extensive research in the development of various pretreatment techniques utilizing various physical, chemical, physicochemical and biological approaches which are specifically tailored towards the source biomaterial and its application. The objective of this review is to discuss the various pretreatment strategies currently in use and provide an overview of their utilization for the isolation of high-value bio-polymeric components. The article further discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the various pretreatment methodologies as well as addresses the role of various key factors that are likely to have a significant impact on the pretreatment and digestibility of LCB.

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Recent Trends in the Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass for Value-Added Products

Recent developments in pretreatment technologies on lignocellulosic biomass: Effect of key parameters, technological improvements, and challenges.

The use of enzymes or microorganisms in food preparations is an age-old process. With the advancement of technology, novel enzymes with wide range of applications and specificity have been developed and new application areas are still being explored. Microorganisms such as bacteria, yeast and fungi and their enzymes are widely used in several food preparations for improving the taste and texture and they offer huge economic benefits to industries. Microbial enzymes are the preferred source to plants or animals due to several advantages such as easy, cost-effective and consistent production. The present review discusses the recent advancement in enzyme technology for food industries. A comprehensive list of enzymes used in food processing, the microbial source of these enzymes and the wide range of their application are discussed.

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Applications of Microbial Enzymes in Food Industry.

Hydrothermal liquefaction of agricultural and forestry wastes: state-of-the-art review and future prospects

http://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/155825/1/Oxidoreductases_industrial_biotransformations_2017_CC.pdf

Oxidoreductases on their way to industrial biotransformations

Research on regulation of cellulases and hemicellulases gene expression may be very useful for increasing the production of these enzymes in their native producers. Mechanisms of gene regulation of cellulase and hemicellulase expression in filamentous fungi have been studied, mainly in Aspergillus and Trichoderma. The production of these extracellular enzymes is an energy-consuming process, so the enzymes are produced only under conditions in which the fungus needs to use plant polymers as an energy and carbon source. Moreover, production of many of these enzymes is coordinately regulated, and induced in the presence of the substrate polymers. In addition to induction by mono- and oligo-saccharides, genes encoding hydrolytic enzymes involved in plant cell wall deconstruction in filamentous fungi can be repressed during growth in the presence of easily metabolizable carbon sources, such as glucose. Carbon catabolite repression is an important mechanism to repress the production of plant cell wall degrading enzymes during growth on preferred carbon sources. This manuscript reviews the recent advancements in elucidation of molecular mechanisms responsible for regulation of expression of cellulase and hemicellulase genes in fungi.

Regulation of Cellulase and Hemicellulase Gene Expression in Fungi

Exploring the microbiota dynamics related to vegetable biomasses degradation and study of lignocellulose-degrading bacteria for industrial biotechnological application

/pdf/exploring-the-microbiota-dynamics-related-to-vegetable-2x159kpxci.pdf

Laccase pretreatment for agrofood wastes valorization.

Beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage worldwide. In the manufacture of beer, various by-products and residues are generated, and the most abundant (85% of total by-products) are spent grains. Thanks to its high (hemi)cellulose content (about 50% w/w dry weight), this secondary raw material is attractive for the production of second-generation biofuels as butanol through fermentation processes. This study reports the ability of two laccase preparations from Pleurotus ostreatus to delignify and detoxify milled brewer’s spent grains (BSG). Up to 94% of phenols reduction was achieved. Moreover, thanks to the mild conditions of enzymatic pretreatment, the formation of other inhibitory compounds was avoided allowing to apply the sequential enzymatic pretreatment and hydrolysis process (no filtration and washing steps between the two phases). As expected, the high detoxification and delignification yields achieved by laccase pretreatment resulted in great saccharification. As a fact, no loss of carbohydrates was observed thanks to the novel sequential strategy, and thus the totality of polysaccharides was hydrolysed into fermentable sugars. The enzymatic hydrolysate was fermented to acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) by Clostridium acetobutilycum obtaining about 12.6 g/L ABE and 7.83 g/L butanol within 190 h. The applied sequential pretreatment and hydrolysis process resulted to be very effective for the milled BSG, allowing reduction of inhibitory compounds and lignin content with a consequent efficient saccharification. C. acetobutilycum was able to ferment the BSG hydrolysate with ABE yields similar to those obtained by using synthetic media. The proposed strategy reduces the amount of wastewater and the cost of the overall process. Based on the reported results, the potential production of butanol from the fermentation of BSG hydrolysate can be envisaged.

/pdf/butanol-production-from-laccase-pretreated-brewer-s-spent-3wwav2b1md.pdf

Butanol production from laccase-pretreated brewer’s spent grain

Laccase-catalyzed synthesis of dye molecules represents a green choice to reduce the environmental footprint of conventional synthetic processes. Textile industry will benefit from this green technology since the synthesized dyes can be exploited to colour different fabrics.

This work describes the application of the Pleurotus ostreatus POXA1b laccase in polymeric dye synthesis using resorcinol and 2,5-diaminobenzenesulfonic acid (2,5-DABSA) as substrates. The potential of the resorcinol/2,5-DABSA coupling route was transferred to a chemical industry, Setas Colour Center, by introducing a greener synthesis step within the process routinely used for textile dyeing. Dye synthesis was performed at different precursor ratios (1:1 and 1:10 2,5-DABSA: resorcinol) and their dyeing properties were compared on different fibres. The two mixtures of synthesized dyes proved to be effective on nylon and wool, with 1:10 ratio displaying the best performances in terms of dyeing efficiency and colour strength. Good and comparable end quality and “performances during use” were observed for nylon and wool coloured with both synthesized dyes.

Simona Giacobbe

Papers

Regulation of Cellulase and Hemicellulase Gene Expression in Fungi

Exploring the microbiota dynamics related to vegetable biomasses degradation and study of lignocellulose-degrading bacteria for industrial biotechnological application

Laccase pretreatment for agrofood wastes valorization.

Butanol production from laccase-pretreated brewer’s spent grain

Green routes towards industrial textile dyeing: A laccase based approach