Ultrafiltration of hydrolysis products from xylan Eucalyptus wood
Advancing the chemical engineering fundamentals
Filtration (T2-11P)
Keywords: Eucalyptus globulus wood, xylooligosaccharides, membranes, purification
Eucalyptus globulus wood has been used as raw material for treatments in aqueous media to obtain liquors containing xylooligosaccharides (XO).
Xylooligosaccharides can be used as ingredients for functional food due to its prebiotic effect. When ingested in diet, XOs behave as non-digestible oligosaccharide, reaching the gut, where they favour the proliferation of healthy bacteria as Bifidubacteria and facilitate the reduction of entero-putrefactive and pathogenic intestinal bacteria by increasing the production of short chain fatty acids.
The solubilisation of xylan from Eucalyptus globulus wood was carried out by autohydrolysis, a treatment based on the use of water as sole fractionation agent. In this method, hydronium ions from both water and acetic acid (from cleavage of acetyl groups linked to the main chain of xylose units) catalyse the hydrolysis of xylan, giving a mixture of valuable compounds such as oligomers, sugars and phenolic compounds.
Tubular ceramic membranes with a cut-off from 1 to 50 kDa were used to purify autohydrolysis liquors to obtain a concentrate with an increased XO concentration owing to the preferential removal of both monosaccharides and non-saccharide compounds.
See the full pdf manuscript of the abstract.
Presented Tuesday 18, 13:30 to 15:00, in session Filtration (T2-11P).
