Influence of Different Pretreatment Methods and Yeast Strains on Xylitol Production from Sugarcane Trash Hemicellulose Hydrolysate

Abstract

AbstractThe two main factors that influence the success of xylitol production from lignocellulosic biomass are as follows: (1) A pretreatment method that can increase cellulose digestibility, resulting in high sugar production and low concentration of by-products. (2) The use of microorganisms that can efficiently use sugar (especially xylose) and have a high tolerance to the inhibitors contained in hemicellulose hydrolysate. The present study aimed to study the influence of different pretreatment methods and yeast strains used in the xylitol production from sugarcane trash hemicellulose hydrolysate. The pretreatment was conducted using two methods: (1) microwave-maleic acid (1.8%) pretreatment at 180 °C for 5 min and (2) liquid hot water-sulfuric acid (1%) at 170 °C for 30 min. The hemicellulose hydrolysate produced from each pretreatment was then used for fermentation using four different yeast strains to produce xylitol. Fermentation was carried out at 30 °C and 200 rpm for 72 h. Kluyveromyces marxianus TBRC 1524 gave the highest result at 24 h of fermentation, with 2.29 g/l xylitol production from 20.29 g/l xylose contained in sugarcane trash hemicellulose hydrolysate after microwave-maleic acid pretreatment. Unfortunately, no xylitol was produced by all the yeast strains after fermentation using liquid hot water-sulfuric acid pretreated sugarcane trash hemicellulose hydrolysate. It was concluded that microwave-maleic acid and K. marxianus TBRC 1524 could be a potential pretreatment method and a potential yeast strain to produce xylitol from sugarcane trash hemicellulose hydrolysate.KeywordsHemicellulose hydrolysateLiquid hot water-sulfuric acidMicrowave-maleic acidPretreatmentSugarcane trashXylitolYeast strains