Xylitol: Production and its applications – A Review

Abstract

Xylitol is important chemical due to its various applications. The use of xylitol as a sweetener for diabetic patients has made it a high valuable special chemical. As xylitol is present in low concentrations in fruits and vegetables, therefore its extraction is unaffordable from these sources. Thus, xylitol can be produced chemically by reduction of xylose in presence of suitable reducing agents and microbial route method. Although several species of yeast, fungi and bacteria synthesize xylitol by the species of the genus Candida, Saccharomyces, Pichia, Debaryomyces, Trichosporon, Enterobacter, Corynebacterium, Mycobacterium etc. The chemical synthesis of xylitol from xylose is the dominant production method of xylitol production. The industrial process to produce xylitol involves the chemical hydrolysis of D-xylose followed by the hydrogenation of the resultant hemicellulose hydrolysate by catalysts including palladium and nickel. For the chemical synthesis of xylitol, high temperatures and high pressure are required. These processes are very expensive which makes the production costs of synthesizing xylitol because of the highly energy intensive, high temperature, pressure and metal catalyst used for a sustained period of time. Therefore, in this review article we study the microbial route of xylitol production from agricultural residues.