Green Process for Producing Xylooligosaccharides by Using Sequential Auto-hydrolysis and Xylanase Hydrolysis

Area of Science:

• Biomass valorization and carbohydrate chemistry.
• Focus on functional oligosaccharides and prebiotics.

Background:

• Xylooligosaccharides (XOS) are valuable prebiotic compounds derived from lignocellulosic biomass.
• XOS with specific degrees of polymerization (DP), particularly DP 2 (xylobiose) and DP 3 (xylotriose), are key active components for food and pharmaceutical applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an efficient strategy for maximizing the production of XOS with desired DP from corncob.
• To optimize the selective preparation of xylobiose and xylotriose.

Main Methods:

• A combined approach using sequential auto-hydrolysis followed by xylanase hydrolysis was employed.
• Corncob was used as the raw material for biomass processing.

Main Results:

• The sequential hydrolysis effectively decomposed hemicellulosic xylan into higher DP saccharides, which were then rapidly converted to XOS.
• A maximum XOS yield of 56.3% was achieved.
• The ratio of xylobiose and xylotriose to total XOS exceeded 80%, with minimal by-product formation.

Conclusions:

• The developed method enables selective and precise preparation of XOS from corncob.
• This approach significantly promotes the application of XOS as functional sugar products.