Abstract
The extraction of fiber from Agave lechuguilla Torrey produces 15% of ixtle and 85% of guishe. Guishe is a pulpous by-product, without commercial value, composed of several phytochemicals which could be used as raw material for the synthesis of high added value products. The objective of this work was to conceptualize the integration of transformation processes into a biorefinery scheme, through a mass balance analysis, to identify opportunities for the revalorization of guishe. The processing of 1 ton of guishe is employed as a computing unit. Three fundamental transformation processes were considered: solvent extraction, thermochemical, and biological processing. The information was obtained from ixtle producers and implemented processes at lab scale by the authors. The obtained results show that the transformation of 1 ton of guishe allows producing: 260 kg of saponins, 104 kg of phytochemicals, 7.6 L of ethanol, 24 m3 of hydrogen, 15 kg of biochar and 32 m3 of methane. The evaluated technology is commercially available, and then it is feasible to implement the proposed alternatives at an industrial scale.
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