Pre-treatment of agro-industrial residues

Abstract

Problem of management of agro-industrial residues complicate the farming economies. Agro-industrial residues are the most abundant and renewable resources on earth. Accumulation of this biomass in large quantities every year results not only in the deterioration of the environment, but also in the loss of potentially valuable material which can be processed to yield a number of valuable added products, such as food, fuel, feed and a variety of chemicals. The agro-industrial residues have alternative uses or markets. Pre-treatment is an important tool for breakdown of the structure of these residues mainly formed of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Cellulose is present in large quantities in agro-industrial residues. As hemicellulose and cellulose are present in the cell wall they undergo lignification hence there is an increasing need to have an effective and economic method to separate cellulose and hemicellulose from cell wall. Various pre-treatment methods such as physical, chemical, biological (enzymatic) and combined are available. Physical and chemical treatments breakdown the materials present in the agro-industrial residues. As glucose is readily used by the microorganisms and is present in cellulose, biological pre-treatment by microrganisms is also a good method. Enzymes like phytase, laccase, LiP, MnP are produced by these microrganisms and help in delignification, bleaching, and manufacture of animal feed etc. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.