Pretreatments of Non-Woody Cellulosic Feedstocks for Bacterial Cellulose Synthesis

• Main Authors: Ekaterina I. Kashcheyeva, Yulia A. Gismatulina, Vera V. Budaeva
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-10-01
• Series: Polymers
• Subjects: non-woody cellulosic feedstocks; <i>miscanthus</i>; oat hulls; pretreatment; enzymatic hydrolysis; bacterial cellulose
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/11/10/1645

Pretreatment of biomass is a key step in the production of valuable products, including high-tech bacterial cellulose. The efficiency of five different pretreatment methods of <i>Miscanthus</i> and oat hulls for enzymatic hydrolysis and subsequent synthesis of bacterial cellulose (BC) was evaluated herein: Hydrothermobaric treatment, single-stage treatments with dilute HNO₃ or dilute NaOH solution, and two-stage combined treatment with dilute HNO₃ and NaOH solutions in direct and reverse order. The performance of enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreatment products was found to increase by a factor of 4&#8722;7. All the resultant hydrolyzates were composed chiefly of glucose, as the xylose percentage in total reducing sugars (RS) was 1&#8722;9%. The test synthesis of BC demonstrated good quality of nutrient media prepared from all the enzymatic hydrolyzates, except the hydrothermobaric treatment hydrolyzate. For biosynthesis of BC, single-stage pretreatments with either dilute HNO₃ or dilute NaOH are advised due their simplicity and the high performance of enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreatment products (RS yield 79.7&#8722;83.4%).