Eco-friendly and rapid one-step fermentable sugar production from raw lignocellulosic biomass using enzyme mimicking nanomaterials: A novel cost-effective approach to biofuel production

Abstract

Cerium-doped iron oxide nanoparticles (CeFe3O4-NPs) possessing exceptional laccase and cellulase/hemicellulase mimicking properties were exploited for simultaneous pretreatment (i.e. delignification) and saccharification (SPS) of raw corn cob (CC) biomass. Here, we developed an eco-friendly single step SPS strategy for conversion of raw CC biomass into C6 and C5 sugars using CeFe3O4-NPs with in-houseproduced cellulase andhemicellulaseenzymes which generated maximum glucose (20.3 ± 1.01 g/L) and xylose (22.0 ± 2.22 g/L) within 24 h of hydrolysis at 55 °C and further 21.7 g/L of bioethanol was produced by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. These results clearly elucidated the role of CeFe3O4-NPs as lignocellulose degrading laccase and cellulase/hemicellulase enzymes. Remarkably, the presence of CeFe3O4-NPs has triggered xylose utilization in S. cerevisiae which is completely a new finding. This study can provide new insights towards the probable role of CeFe3O4-NPs in the up-regulation of significant genes responsible for xylose utilization which is a noteworthy finding in the field of ‘biomass to biofuel’ conversion.