Hemicellulose, wheat straw

Potential resources of xylans are by-products produced in forestry and the pulp and paper industries (forest chips, wood meal and shavings), where GX and AGX comprise 25-35% of the biomass as well as annual crops (straw, stalks, husk, hulls, bran, etc.), which consist of 25-50% AX, AGX, GAX, and CHX [4]. New results were reported for xylans isolated from flax fiber [16,68], abaca fiber [69], wheat straw [70,71], sugar beet pulp [21,72], sugarcane bagasse [73], rice straw [74], wheat bran [35,75], and jute bast fiber [18]. Recently, about 39% hemicelluloses were extracted from vetiver grasses [76]. 

FTIR spectra of extracted wheat straw hemicellulose and cellulose do not exhibit this band (spectra not shown). From this point, the extracted wheat straw XRPP is also assigned to pectic substances. The intensity ratio of the bands i>as(COO ) at 1608 cm" and j (C 0) ester at 1740 cm corresponds to fully deesterified pectin and Me pectate... 

Aqueous alkaline extraction of wood was employed by Poumarede and Figuier48 in 1846 for the removal of a substance called wood gum. Similar very crude xylan or hemicellulose preparations were made by other workers of the early period. Extractions were made not only from wood sawdust, but from annual plant materials such as wheat straw, corn cob, etc.49-66... 

The FP cellulose per unit (ml) volume and enzyme yield per unit (g) cellulose or substrate obtained on wheat straw, wood, and CTMP in SSF were higher than those obtained in LSF on wheat straw and wood (Tables I, II, and III). And wheat straw proved to be a better substrate than wood for cellulose production in SSF. This could be attributed to the polysaccharides (cellulose and hemicelluloses) of wheat straw being more readily available for the organism s growth and cellulose synthesis than those of wood. The hemicelluloses and cellulose were presumably not as available in wood, because of its high lignin content and high cellulose crystallinity, as in wheat straw. 

When the hyper-cellulolytic mutant T. reesei QM9414 was grown on various substrates derived from wheat straw in stirred batch culture, the highest specific growth rates were on holocellulose and the hemicellulose-A defined by O Dwyer (8) it grew poorly on lignocellulose. By contrast,... 

Table I. Growth of Trichoderma reesei QM9414 (Tr) and T. harzianum IMI275950 (Th) on wheat straw lignocellulose (lignocell.) or derived cellulosic materials from straw (cell., cellulose hemicell-A, hemicellulose-A holocell., holocellulose)...

However, oral administration of these polysaccharides had no effect. Hemi-celluloses from different higher plants caused regression of solid Sarkoma 180 in mice but not of ascites tumor. Arabinoglucuronoxylan isolated from wheat-straw hemicellulose was completely devoid of activity, whereas arabinoglucoxylan was highly active (Nakahara 31)). 

When screening a large number of Lactobacillus strains for lactate production using hemicellulose hydrolysate, strains L. pentosus CHCC2355 and L. brevis CHCC2097 were selected and evaluated further (Garde et al, 2002). Each strain produced lactate with 88% (for L. pentosus) and 61% of the theoretical yield (L. brevis), respectively, from wheat straw hydrolysate without visible inhibition. The operation of the phosphoketolase pathway in these... 

Garde, A., Jonsson, G., Schmidt, A. S., and Ahring, B. K. 2002. Lactic acid production from wheat straw hemicellulose hydrolysate by Lactobacillus pentosus and Lactobacillus brevis. Bioresour. Technol., 81,217-223. 

Although non-endospermic, hemicellulosic materials have often been reported to yield glucose on hydrolysis, there is little evidence of the presence of glucosyl residues in xylans. Non-cellulosic glucose occurs mainly, or exclusively, in /J-D-glucans (described later in this Section). 2,6-Di-O-methylglucose was obtained on methylation and hydrolysis of the xylans of wheat straw and com cob,132 and its presence is indicative of doubly linked glucose residues attached in some way to these xylans.132... 

The pyrolysis of wheat straw could be expected to be described by a superposition model, i.e. described by a number of parallel first order reactions, representing the decomposition of the biomass constituents (cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin) [4,5]. In this work, a superposition model has been used, in which the pyrolysis is assumed to be described by N independent first order reactions (for i=l, 2,..., N) ... 

Despite the variety of sources, all lignocellulosic material is composed primarily of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin [22], Agricultural wastes such as bagasse, com stover and wheat straw are thus a relatively cheap source of these three biopolymers. The major challenge to using lignocellulosic biomass as a feedstock is the development of cost-effective methods to separate, refine and transform it into chemicals and fuels [20],... 

Using the advanced bioethanol technology available, it is possible to produce ethanol from any cellulose/hemicellulose material, which means any plant or plant-derived material. Many of these materials are not just underutilized and inexpensive, but also create disposal problems. For example, rice straw and wheat straw are often burned in the field, a practice that is becoming limited by air pollution concerns. Also, much of the material now going into landfills is cellulose/hemicellulose material and could be used... 

Biomass material (woodchips or wheat straw) is placed in a high-pressure stainless steel tube and exposed to steam under pressures ranging from 250-650 psi at 200 to 240°C for up to 20 min. The sudden pressure release causes an explosion of biomass material thereby disrupting the lignin and hemicellulose bonding toward cellulose. Many investigators (see [29] for review) have studied the steam explosion of biomass materials. The addition of SO2 enhances the pretreatment effect and also increases the recovery of hemicellulose [34-36]. A refinement of this pretreatment method has recently been reported by Stenberg et al. [37]. 

---