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Hydrolysis of Corncob Hemicellulose by Solid Acid Sulfated Zirconia and Its Evaluation in Xylitol Production

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Abstract

Corncob is an abundant agricultural residue containing high content of hemicellulose. In this paper, the hemicellulosic hydrolysate was prepared from the hydrolysis of corncob using the solid acid sulfated zirconia as a catalyst. According to response surface analysis experiments, the optimum conditions for preparing hemicellulosic hydrolysate catalyzed by sulfated zirconia were determined as follows: solid (sulfated zirconia)–solid (corncob) ratio was 0.33, solid (corncob)–liquid (water) ratio was 0.09, temperature was 153 °C, and time was 5.3 h. Under the optimized conditions, the soluble sugar concentration was 30.12 g/L with a yield of 033 g/g corncob. Subsequently, xylitol production from the resulting hemicellulosic hydrolysate was demonstrated by Candida tropicalis, and results showed that the yield of xylitol from the hemicellulosic hydrolysate could be significantly improved on a basis of decolorization and detoxification before fermentation. The maximum yield of xylitol from the hemicellulosic hydrolysate fermented by C. tropicalis was 0.76 g/g. This study provides a new attempt for xylitol production from the hemicellulosic hydrolysate.

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Funding

The authors received financial support from NSFC (21676142), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFA0902200), Jiangsu Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Fund Project (CX(19)2001), Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Universities, Six Talent Peaks Project in Jiangsu Province, and the Jiangsu Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Bio-Manufacture.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211816, China

    Lijun Wan, Zhen Gao, Bin Wu, Fei Cao, Min Jiang, Ping Wei & Honghua Jia

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  1. Lijun Wan
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Correspondence to Honghua Jia.

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Wan, L., Gao, Z., Wu, B. et al. Hydrolysis of Corncob Hemicellulose by Solid Acid Sulfated Zirconia and Its Evaluation in Xylitol Production. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 193, 205–217 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-020-03412-9

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