Abstract

The reuse of agro-industrial waste has been a recurring issue since the 20th century. With a composition rich in carbohydrates and because of the massive amount of residue produced daily all over the world, corncob became a low-cost and suitable substrate to produce high added-value compounds. Biosurfactants are bioproducts of versatile applications due to their chemical structure with hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions. The current work performed a bibliometric analysis to identify research related to the synthesis of biosurfactants using corncob as substrate. Despite the high availability of corncobs, only nine articles were found in Scopus and Web of Science using different pretreatment processes and microorganisms. After an initial screening, data regarding research organizations, scientific journals, citations, countries, institutions, and keywords were analyzed. Results indicated that corncobs were also used to produce enzymes, adsorbents, activated carbon, and furfural. The presented evaluation updated the status of art, identifying a serious need for more research, especially because of corncob’s high potential to provide fermentable sugars and the wide range of variables influencing fermentation processes that still need to be studied. A future association of this low-cost substrate with other methods can result in a promising scenario for technology transference.

摘要

自 20 世纪以来，农业工业废物的再利用一直是一个反复出现的问题。玉米芯含有丰富的碳水化合物，并且由于世界各地每天产生大量残留物，玉米芯成为生产高附加值化合物的低成本和合适的基质。由于其具有亲水和疏水区域的化学结构，生物表面活性剂是用途广泛的生物产品。目前的工作进行了文献计量分析，以确定与使用玉米芯作为底物合成生物表面活性剂相关的研究。尽管玉米芯的可用性很高，但在 Scopus 和 Web of Science 中仅发现了 9 篇使用不同预处理工艺和微生物的文章。经过初步筛选，有关研究组织、科学期刊、引文、国家、机构、并分析了关键词。结果表明，玉米芯还用于生产酶、吸附剂、活性炭和糠醛。所提出的评估更新了技术现状，确定了对更多研究的严重需求，特别是因为玉米芯具有提供可发酵糖的高潜力以及影响发酵过程的广泛变量仍有待研究。这种低成本基板与其他方法的未来关联可以为技术转让带来有希望的情景。特别是因为玉米芯具有提供可发酵糖的巨大潜力，以及影响发酵过程的广泛变量仍需研究。这种低成本基板与其他方法的未来关联可以为技术转让带来有希望的情景。特别是因为玉米芯具有提供可发酵糖的巨大潜力，以及影响发酵过程的广泛变量仍需研究。这种低成本基板与其他方法的未来关联可以为技术转让带来有希望的情景。