Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

Due to finite petroleum reserves and the ever increasing energy consumption by the developed as well as developing countries has created an international unease. This international concern has led to the need for the search of other alternatives such as solar, water and wind energy conversion. A thing what matters is: Are we only going to consume what is available to us or being the most developed species can we make out something from the consumed or which is considered as waste? Lignocellulosic biomass present on our earth, consisting of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin is considered to be as ?Waste?. This waste biomass can easily be converted into biofuel with the help of different chemical as well as biochemical conversion. Current strategies to delignify lignocellulosic materials, includes mild acid and alkali treatment, which often lead to the production of a number of fermentative inhibitors including that of Yeast. These inhibitors include 5-hydroxymethylfurfural and furfural, which are produced by the dehydration of hexose and pentose sugars, respectively. The significant improvements can be made if a process is developed to reduce toxic compound during lignocellulosic pretreatment and increase conversion of plant cell wall polysaccharides to monosaccharides. Lignocellulosic material can efficiently be converted into fermentable sugars through enzymatic hydrolysis using cellulases and hemicellulases without the conversion of inhibitors of yeast fermentation. Xylan, major polysaccharide of hemicellulose, requires the action of several hydrolytic enzymes due to its heterogeneity and the complex chemical structure. Xylanase can potentially be use in pretreatment of lignocellulosic material, mainly hemicellulose for conversion of fermentable monosaccharides.

Biography

Lalit Kumar is pursuing his PhD from Department of Paper Technology, IIT Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India. His research work is mainly on xylanase, an industrially important enzyme. He is a Post graduate in Botany with Gold Medal and has qualified CSIR-JRF-2007, UGC-CSIR-2010 and GATE -2008 in life science. His research interest includes molecular characterization, structure-function relationship of enzymes that is useful for industrial purpose. The structure determination of this protein will be helpful to improve the stability of the enzymes by mutational studies and thus modulate the function of these important enzymes.