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Supercritical carbon dioxide “explosion” on blue agave bagasse to enhance enzymatic digestibility

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Abstract

Supercritical carbon dioxide (SCCO2) was employed as pretreatment of blue agave bagasse (BAB) to enhance enzymatic hydrolysis (EH) to simple sugars in preparation for bioethanol fermentation. Processing time (10–120 min), temperature (24–120 °C), and pressure (80–350 bar) were evaluated to obtain maximum total reducing sugar (TRS) after EH with commercial cellulase. Effect of water activity (aw) (0.082–0.973) of BAB was evaluated after optimum pretreatment conditions for maximum TRS (100 °C, 280 bar, and 10 min) were established. Higher values of temperature or pressure degraded simple sugars as determined by relative furan analysis. Treated samples were also characterized by scanning electronic microscopy and porosimetry, showing structural and morphological modifications that enhance enzymatic digestibility as compared to untreated controls. Processing with SCCO2 results in 40% increment in TRS compared with untreated BAB. Hydration level defined by aw resulted in the main variable affecting sugar yields, with lowest aw of pretreated BAB generating the highest TRS valued. It is proposed that at low hydration levels, diffusivity of CO2 is greater facilitating infiltration into the matrix and a more extensive deconstruction of the tight lignocellulosic matrix by explosion when pressure is released.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr Tatiana Klimova from Chemical Engineering Department (Facultad de Química, UNAM) for the porosimetry studies.

Funding

The author wishes to thank to Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACYT) for the PhD grant number 603689 to AN.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Alimentos y Biotecnología, Facultad de Química, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, 04510, México

    Armando Navarro, Carmina Montiel, Alberto Tecante & Eduardo Bárzana

  2. Departamento de Fisicoquímica, Facultad de Química, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de Mexico, 04510, México

    Jesús Gracia-Fadrique

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  1. Armando Navarro
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  2. Carmina Montiel
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  3. Jesús Gracia-Fadrique
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  5. Eduardo Bárzana
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Correspondence to Eduardo Bárzana.

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Navarro, A., Montiel, C., Gracia-Fadrique, J. et al. Supercritical carbon dioxide “explosion” on blue agave bagasse to enhance enzymatic digestibility. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 13, 5691–5699 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-021-01557-z

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