Integrating ball milling assisted enzymatic hydrolysis of bamboo cellulose for controllable production of xylo-oligosaccharides, monosaccharides and cellulose nanofibrils

Abstract

Green bioconversion technology has been regarded as a fundamental solution to energy challenges and environmental issues. During bioconversion, a combination of mechanical and enzymatic treatment on lignocellulosic biomass can not only conformity with environmental concepts but also enable efficient conversion. In this study, a ball milling assisted enzymatic treatment was applied for full utilization of bamboo cellulose. In addition to the production of soluble saccharides, the residues that remained after enzymatic hydrolysis were collected for producing high-quality nanocellulose. Ball milling efficiently broke the hydrogen bonding interactions between glucan chains thus promoting the following xylanase and cellulase conversion. The highest Xylo-oligosaccharides (XOS) yield reached 21.6%. Meanwhile, xylanase facilitated cellulase hydrolysis by separation of hemicellulose on cellulose. With a low commercial cellulase loading of 5 FPU/g glucan, a maximum yield of 76.6% glucose and 53.3% xylose was reached. Finally, nanocellulose was extracted from the enzymatic hydrolyzate residue with a minimum width of 3.5 nm and an average size of 294.8 nm. The present study proposed an efficient combination of mechanical treatment assisted enzymatic digestion, which is not only environmentally friendly but also allows for complete bioconversion of bamboo cellulose.