Development of an Energy Biorefinery Model for Chestnut ( Castanea sativa Mill.) Shells

Alessandra Morana, Giuseppe Squillaci, Susana M. Paixão, Luís Alves, Francesco La Cara and Patrícia Moura
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Alessandra Morana: Institute of Agro-Environmental and Forest Biology, National Research Council of Italy, Via Pietro Castellino 111, 80131 Naples, Italy
Giuseppe Squillaci: Institute of Agro-Environmental and Forest Biology, National Research Council of Italy, Via Pietro Castellino 111, 80131 Naples, Italy
Susana M. Paixão: LNEG, Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia, Unidade de Bioenergia, Estrada do Paço do Lumiar, 1649-038 Lisboa, Portugal
Luís Alves: LNEG, Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia, Unidade de Bioenergia, Estrada do Paço do Lumiar, 1649-038 Lisboa, Portugal
Francesco La Cara: Institute of Agro-Environmental and Forest Biology, National Research Council of Italy, Via Pietro Castellino 111, 80131 Naples, Italy
Patrícia Moura: LNEG, Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia, Unidade de Bioenergia, Estrada do Paço do Lumiar, 1649-038 Lisboa, Portugal

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: Chestnut shells (CS) are an agronomic waste generated from the peeling process of the chestnut fruit, which contain 2.7–5.2% ( w / w ) phenolic compounds and approximately 36% ( w / w ) polysaccharides. In contrast with current shell waste burning practices, this study proposes a CS biorefinery that integrates biomass pretreatment, recovery of bioactive molecules, and bioconversion of the lignocellulosic hydrolyzate, while optimizing materials reuse. The CS delignification and saccharification produced a crude hydrolyzate with 12.9 g/L of glucose and xylose, and 682 mg/L of gallic acid equivalents. The detoxification of the crude CS hydrolyzate with 5% ( w / v ) activated charcoal (AC) and repeated adsorption, desorption and AC reuse enabled 70.3% ( w / w ) of phenolic compounds recovery, whilst simultaneously retaining the soluble sugars in the detoxified hydrolyzate. The phenols radical scavenging activity (RSA) of the first AC eluate reached 51.8 ± 1.6%, which is significantly higher than that of the crude CS hydrolyzate (21.0 ± 1.1%). The fermentation of the detoxified hydrolyzate by C. butyricum produced 10.7 ± 0.2 mM butyrate and 63.9 mL H 2 /g of CS. Based on the obtained results, the CS biorefinery integrating two energy products (H 2 and calorific power from spent CS), two bioproducts (phenolic compounds and butyrate) and one material reuse (AC reuse) constitutes a valuable upgrading approach for this yet unexploited waste biomass.

Keywords: waste biomass; chestnut shells; fermentative hydrogen; bioactive compounds; polyphenols; antioxidant activity; butyrate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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