A biotechnological process efficiently co-produces two high value-added products, glucose and xylooligosaccharides, from sugarcane bagasse.

In this study, a co-production of two high value-added products, glucose and xylooligosaccharides (XOS), was investigated by utilizing sugarcane bagasse (SB) within a multi-product bio-refinery framework optimized by Box-Behnken design-based response surface methodology. The developed process resulted in a maximum cellulose conversion of xylan-removed SB, 98.69±1.30%, and a maximum extracted SB xylan conversion into XOS (xylobiose and xylotriose) of 57.36±0.79% that was the highest SB xylan conversion reported in the literature, employing cellulase from Penicillium oxalicum EU2106 and recombinant endo-ß-1,4-xylanase in Pichia pastoris. Consequently, a mass balance analysis showed that the maximum yields of glucose and XOS were 34.43±0.32g and 5.96±0.09 g per 100 g raw SB. Overall, this described process may be a preferred option for the comprehensive utilization of SB.

Positive matrix factorization as source apportionment of soil lead and cadmium around a battery plant (Changxing County, China).

Chemical compositions of soil samples are multivariate in nature and provide datasets suitable for the application of multivariate factor analytical techniques. One of the analytical techniques, the positive matrix factorization (PMF), uses a weighted least square by fitting the data matrix to determine the weights of the sources based on the error estimates of each data point. In this research, PMF was employed to apportion the sources of heavy metals in 104 soil samples taken within a 1-km radius of a lead battery plant contaminated site in Changxing County, Zhejiang Province, China. The site is heavily contaminated with high concentrations of lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd). PMF successfully partitioned the variances into sources related to soil background, agronomic practices, and the lead battery plants combined with a geostatistical approach. It was estimated that the lead battery plants and the agronomic practices contributed 55.37 and 29.28%, respectively, for soil Pb of the total source. Soil Cd mainly came from the lead battery plants (65.92%), followed by the agronomic practices (21.65%), and soil parent materials (12.43%). This research indicates that PMF combined with geostatistics is a useful tool for source identification and apportionment.