Xylan fibers

The plant is harvested by hand sickle and, after defoUation, is stripped and scraped by hand or machine decorticated. Because of the high gum (xylan and araban) content of up to 35%, retting is not possible. The fibers are separated chemically by boiling in an alkaline solution in open vats or under pressure, then washed, bleached with hypochlorite, neutralized, oiled to facUitate spinning, and dried. 

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]. 

Xylan occurs in practically all land plants and is said to be present in some marine algae.6 In both wide botanical distribution and abundance in nature it closely follows cellulose and starch. It is most abundant in annual crops, particularly in agricultural residues such as corn cobs, corn stalks, grain hulls and stems. Here it occurs in amounts ranging from 15 to 30%. Hard woods contain 20 to 25% xylan while soft woods contain 7 to 12 %. Spring wood has more pentosan than summer wood. 7 Low strength vegetable fibers of commerce such as jute, sisal, Manila... 

With the exception of starch, many biopolymers cannot provide nutrition for humans and other omnivorous animals. In human foods biopolymers are used as additives that can improve texture, viscosity, fiber content, and other properties of prepared foods, without providing direct nutritional values. Examples of such utilization are the addition of pectins, agar, and other gums to foods to achieve thickening and gelling effects. Another example of potential large-scale utilization of cell wall biopolymers is the dramatic improvement in the texture and rising of breads prepared from com and other starches by the addition of xylans (78). 

Other abundant carbohydrates, such as hemicelluloses and pectin, are usually highly branched and thus not very suitable for fiber and film production. Hemicelluloses and some pectins are also acetylated in the native state, which makes them more resistant to enzymatic hydrolysis (20,21) and changes their solubility properties (9-77,75). Branching does not, however, preclude their utilization in such potentially large markets as thickeners and adhesives. Xylans, for example, show such a strong adhesion to cellulose fibers that they are very difficult to remove completely by both acidic and alkaline pulping processes (22). 

Qureshi, N., Li, X.L., Hughes, S., Saha, B.C. and Cotta, M.A. 2006. Butanol Production from Corn Fiber Xylan Using Clostridium Acetobutylicum. Biotechnol. Prog., 22,673-680. Rass-Hansen, J., Falsig, H., Joergensen, B. and Christensen, C.H. 2007. Bioethanol Fuel or Feedstock J. Chem. Technol. Biotechnol., 82, 329-333. 

Jeanite liquid fuel from fermentation of molasses, IV, 32 Jute, xylan percentage in, V, 270 Jute fibers, diffraction pattern, V, 104... 

Other Reactions In addition to the direct stabilizing effect of the uronic acid groups, the relatively high yield of hardwood kraft pulp is also due to the readsorption of xylan on the fibers (Fig. 7-35). After kraft pulping of softwood, the glucomannan remaining in the pulp still contains traces of... 

Fig. 7 -35. Adsorption of xylan on cotton fibers present in the digester during kraft pulping (Yllner and Enstrom, 1956).

Alkali-induced deacetylation and hydrolysis of the uronic acid group of xylans proceed readily under alkaline pulping conditions and contribute significantly to xylan redeposition onto the fibers. The galactose side chain in galactoglucomannans is fairly resistant to alkaline hydrolysis (Table 2). Wood xylans are much more stable than glucomannans under alkaline conditions [34]. 

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