Sunday, May 4, 2008
4-26

Evaluation of Agro-Industrial Residues for New Trends in Application of Lignocellulosic Materials

Denise S. Ruzene1, Elif Yagiz2, Dilek Marangoz2, Daniel P. Silva3, António A. Vicente1, Adilson R. Gonçalves4, and José A. Teixeira1. (1) IBB - Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Centre of Biological Engineering, Universidade do Minho, Campus de Gualtar, Braga, 4710-057, Portugal, (2) Chemical Engineering Department, Engineering Faculty, Ege University, Bornova/Ízmir, 35100, Turkey, (3) IBB - Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Centre of Biological Engineering, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, Braga, 4710-057, Portugal, (4) Biotechnology Department, Engineering School of Lorena- EEL-USP, Rodovia Itajubá - Lorena - Km 74,5 - Bairro Campinho, Lorena-SP, Brazil

The use of agro-industrial residues, low-cost lignocellulosic materials, as feedstock for bio-ethanol production has been proposed to reduce production costs and cause an increase in productivity. However, there are several critical steps for this co-production, in special techno-economic factors. An alternative can be the integral use of these lignocellulosic residues for the development of new industrial products parallel to the bio-ethanol process. This work discusses the applicability and perspectives of applications and procedures towards a more efficient utilization of residues such as sugarcane bagasse and sugarcane straw (main residues from sugar and bio-ethanol industries in countries such as Brazil), corn cob and beet stem (growth tendency due also to sugar and bio-ethanol industries in Europe and North America). However, the solution to this problematic depends firstly on the study of their lignocellulosic fractions and physical characteristics. For this reason, following hydrolysis, the residues were analyzed by HPLC, FTIR, TGA and DSC. Preliminary results indicate the attractiveness of these materials for further applications due to promising quantities of lignocellulosic materials. Beet stem contains 31.9±1.9% glucan and 19.1±0.9% xylan, while corn cob contains 31.8±0.8% and 29.4±0.2%, respectively. These results are in agreement with the results for sugarcane bagasse and sugarcane straw (43.7±0.7% and 21.8±0.2%, and 33.7±0.2% and 25.6±0.6%; glucan and xylan, respectively). Being overproduced and underutilized, its use or co-application as raw-materials will be required to reduce the existence of environmentally hazardous situations and/or increasing the supply of energy or chemicals produced from renewable resources.
Acknowledgements: FAPESP, CAPES and CNPq(Brazil), FCT(Portugal) and Erasmus Programme(Turkey)

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