Hemicellulose – Production and Utilization of Hemicelluloses from Renewable Resources for Sustainable Advanced Products

The PhD project investigates hemicellulose utilisation possibilities of agricultural waste products, with respect to their eventual utilization in polymer films. The targets for these films would be practical applications in areas such as packaging or coatings. The project focuses on a better understanding of these by-products in terms of their chemistry and availability from various plant resources in the context of film applications.

Hemicelluloses are considered to be the second most abundant natural polymers in nature and they are the main structural polysaccharides in the plant cell walls besides cellulose and lignin.
In spite of that, their application for high value products or for potentially biodegradable plastics has not yet been thoroughly studied. The xylan polymers, extracted from grain crops have a significant potential in the non-food area, for film production. The study aims developing processes for extraction of arabinoxylans and β-glucans from cereal brans with a high molecular weight to illustrate the potential of long chain hemicelluloses for non-food applications and for advanced materials, like films for packaging.

The project particularly focuses on:

Raw material selection and analysis, optimization of the pretreatment methods and on the extraction and purification processes
Study on hemicellulose characterization methods
Film production from the obtained hemicelluloses and film characterization

Resources:
The Hemicellulose project is financed by Risø-DTU.

Duration:
2008 - 2011

Employees involved:
Zsuzsa Sárossy (PhD student), Anne Belinda Thomsen (Senior Scientist, supervisor), David Plackett (Senior Scientist, supervisor), Helge Egsgaard (Senior Scientist, co-advisor), Mark Lawther (co-advisor), Ingelis Larsen, Tomas Fernqvist (technical assistance)

Page updated by 08.10.2010

Zsuzsa Sárossy
PhD student
Biosystems (BIO)
Dir tel+45 46774158