Oxygen-Radical Pretreatment Promotes Enzyme Activity for Cellulose Degradation
December 6, 2017https://biotechnologyforbiofuels.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13068-017-0979-6
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The efficiency of enzymes is important in industrial refinery processes, including biofuel production. Chemical methods have been effective for breaking the recalcitrance of lignocellulose biomass. However, these methods have a detrimental effect on the environment. The team of Kiyota Sakai from Meijo University in Japan tested whether oxygen-radical pretreatment can enhance cellulolytic activity. The team first developed a radical generator based on non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma technology.
Results showed that oxygen-radical pretreatment of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and wheat straw enhanced the degradation of cellulose by cellulases from Phanerochaete chrysosporium. Further analysis showed that compared with non-pretreated CMC, oxygen-radical pretreatment significantly increased the production of reducing sugars. Meanwhile, the amount of reducing sugars from oxygen-radical-pretreated wheat straw was found to be 1.8 times greater than those from non-pretreated wheat straw.
These findings indicated that oxygen-radical pretreatment of plant biomass offers great promise in pre-treatment processes.
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