Reducing Sugars Production from Corncobs: A Comparative Study of Chemical and Biotechnological Methods.

Potumarthi, Ravichandra; Baadhe, Rama; Pisipati, Aparna; Jetty, Annapurna

Two commonly used chemical pretreatment processes, sulphuric acid, and sodium hydroxide, were tested to provide comparative performance data. A connection between solid to liquid ratio (S/L) and sugars released was observed with an increase in S/L ratio between 0.02 and 0.2. Enzymatic digestibility of 1 M of NaOH-pretreated corncobs were released 210.7 mg ml of sugars. Further, compared with different concentrations of acid pretreatments at 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.25, 0.3, and 0.5 M concentrations, sodium hydroxide pretreatment of corncob substantially increased accessibility and digestibility of cellulose. Another additional observation made was whole-cell and crude enzymatic hydrolysis of different concentrations of acid and NaOH (0.05, 0.1, 0.25 M)-treated materials released lower amount of sugars compared with the sugars released (310.9 mg ml) with whole-cell hydrolysis of 1 M of NaOH-treated corncobs. NaOH-pretreated corncobs contained higher content of sugars and which is more suitable for production of reducing sugars.

SUGAR; CORNCOBS; INVERSION of sugar; COMPARATIVE studies; SULFURIC acid; SODIUM hydroxide

Applied Biochemistry & Biotechnology, 2014, Vol 174, Issue 6, p2162

0273-2289

Academic Journal

10.1007/s12010-014-1073-1