Issue 44, 2022

Salicornia dolichostachya organosolv fractionation: towards establishing a halophyte biorefinery

Abstract

Halophytes are a potential source of lignocellulosic material for biorefinery, as they can be grown in areas unsuitable for the cultivation of crops aimed at food production. To enable the viable use of halophytes in biorefineries, the present study investigated how different organosolv process parameters affected the fractionation of green pressed fibers of Salicornia dolichostachya. We produced pretreated solids characterized by up to 51.3% ± 1.7% cellulose, a significant increase from 25.6% ± 1.3% in untreated fibers. A delignification yield of as high as 60.7%, and hemicellulose removal of as high as 86.1% were also achieved in the current study. The obtained cellulose could be completely converted to glucose via enzymatic hydrolysis within 24 h. The lignin fractions obtained were of high purity, with sugar contamination of only 1.22% w/w and ashes below 1% w/w in most samples. Finally, up to 29.1% ± 0.4% hemicellulose was recovered as a separate product, whose proportion of oligomers to total sugars was 69.9% ± 3.0%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report in which Salicornia fibers are shown to be a suitable feedstock for organosolv biomass fractionation. These results expand the portfolio of biomass sources for biorefinery applications.

Graphical abstract: Salicornia dolichostachya organosolv fractionation: towards establishing a halophyte biorefinery

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 Jul 2022
Accepted
27 Sep 2022
First published
07 Oct 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Adv., 2022,12, 28599-28607

Salicornia dolichostachya organosolv fractionation: towards establishing a halophyte biorefinery

M. Monção, T. Wretborn, U. Rova, L. Matsakas and P. Christakopoulos, RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 28599 DOI: 10.1039/D2RA04432C

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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