Biochemical conversion of sugarcane straw hemicellulosic hydrolyzate supplemented with co-substrates for xylitol production.

A F Hernández-Pérez, I A L Costa, D D V Silva, K J Dussán, T R Villela, E V Canettieri, J A Carvalho, T G Soares Neto, M G A Felipe

Index: Bioresour. Technol. 200 , 1085-8, (2015)

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Abstract

Biotechnological production of xylitol is an attractive route to add value to a sugarcane biorefinery, through utilization of the hemicellulosic fraction of sugarcane straw, whose availability is increasing in Brazil. Herein, supplementation of the sugarcane straw hemicellulosic hydrolyzate (xylose 57gL(-1)) with maltose, sucrose, cellobiose or glycerol was proposed, and their effect as co-substrates on xylitol production by Candida guilliermondii FTI 20037 was studied. Sucrose (10gL(-1)) and glycerol (0.7gL(-1)) supplementation led to significant increase of 8.88% and 6.86% on xylose uptake rate (1.11gL(-1)h(-1) and 1.09gL(-1)), respectively, but only with sucrose, significant increments of 12.88% and 8.69% on final xylitol concentration (36.11gL(-1)) and volumetric productivity (0.75gL(-1)h(-1)), respectively, were achieved. Based on these results, utilization of complex sources of sucrose, derived from agro-industries, as nutritional supplementation for xylitol production can be proposed as a strategy for improving the yeast performance and reducing the cost of this bioprocess by replacing more expensive nutrients. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.