Characterisation of Non-Cellulosic Heteropolysaccharide from Sugarcane Bagasse - Sequential Extraction with Steam Pretreatment and Alkali

Two-stage treatments of sugarcane bagasse with steam and alkaline peroxide were performed and the hemicelluloses extracted were characterized by chemical methods, SEC-MALLS, FT-IR and 13C NMR. The hemicellulose from steam pretreatment was found to contain galacto-arabinoxylans while alkaline peroxide extraction yielded predominately linear arabinoxylans. The present study showed a promising sequential extraction for isolating arabinoxylan hemicelluloses with different degree of branching, molar mass and functional group from sugarcane bagasse. Consequently, products with a high aggregated value could be developed using this xylan-rich fraction as an ingredient for industrial products.