Bioconversion of Agro-Industrial Waste
into Value-Added Compounds
Tahir Mehmood, Fareeha Nadeem, Sarmad Ahmad Qamar,
Muhammad Bilal, and Hafiz M. N. Iqbal
Abstract
In the wake of increasing environmental apprehension
and inevitable depleting petroleum resources, scientific
interest has intensified to utilize agro-industrial wastes as
a potential raw material for the production of platform
chemicals to upsurge the bio-based economy. A broadspectrum of different biomass waste materials, which are
underutilized, bio-renewable, and biodegradable, is produced across the globe in enormous quantities. All these
kinds of biomass wastes comprise various chemical
constituents that might serve as promising starting
feedstocks to manufacture an array of high-value commodities, and intermediates through different transformation routes. This chapter spotlights the biotransformation
of lignocelluloses’ agro-industrial wastes into a variety of
high-value compounds. Besides, the explanation of
various kinds and sources of lignocellulosic biomass, a
number of various biomass bioconversion technologies
are vetted in detail. Furthermore, the valorization of
various biomass wastes for the production of platform
chemicals and bio-based materials are also discussed.
Keywords
Agro-industrialwastes Á Lignocellulose Á Bioconversion Á
Pretreatment methods Á High-value chemicals
1 Introduction
The food and agriculture sector is emerging at a rapid rate. The
rapid population growth, coupled with accelerating economic
development, has engrossed important investment in the food
and agricultural industry, amounting to 75 billion dollars in
2017. With the growth of the agribusiness industry, emerging
waste generation represents an important environmental
problem. Five million tons of waste are produced yearly from
the agricultural sector (Ravindran et al. 2018). Lignocellulose
and starch are the main content of these wastes including
timber and agricultural industry, home, and garden waste.
Around half-plant material is made up of lignocellulose,
which is the most important renewable source of soil. It also
contains cellulose (35–50%), hemicellulose (20–35%), and
lignin (15–25%) strongly linked by various combinations of
covalent and non-covalent bonding (Bharathiraja 2017; Kohli
et al. 2019). In addition to the key nutrients, lignocellulose
contains other organic substances in minute quantity including
fats, proteins, dietary fibers, vitamins, or inorganic compounds such as water, carbon, sulfates, nitrates, and silicates,
which are not actively involved in the development of
lignocellulosic-based substance (Jedrzejczyk 2019; Kumar
2019; Vassilev et al. 2015). Usually, in lignocellulosic materials, the main source of cellulose is glucose composed of
homopolysaccharide linked by b (1-4) glycosidic bonds. The
crystalline structure and fibril junction of cellulose remain
stable due to the inter- and intramolecular linkage of hydrogen
bonding. The cellulose unit is often referred to as that elemental fibril combining the formation of microfibrils (Gollakota et al. 2018; Kannam et al. 2017; Zabed et al. 2017). The
hemicellulose is heterogeneous in nature having different
T. Mehmood (&) Á F. Nadeem
Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology,
University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences-UVAS,
Lahore, 54000, Pakistan
e-mail: tahir.mehmoodbiochem@uvas.edu.pk
S. A. Qamar
Institute of Organic and Polymeric Materials, National Taipei
University of Technology, Taipei, 10608, Taiwan
M. Bilal (&)
School of Life Science and Food Engineering, Huaiyin Institute
of Technology, Huaian, 223003, China
e-mail: bilaluaf@hotmail.com
H. M. N. Iqbal
Tecnologico de Monterrey, School of Engineering and Sciences,
Monterrey, 64849, Mexico
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Inamuddin and A. Khan (eds.), Sustainable Bioconversion of Waste to Value Added Products, Advances in Science,
Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61837-7_22
349
into Value-Added Compounds
Tahir Mehmood, Fareeha Nadeem, Sarmad Ahmad Qamar,
Muhammad Bilal, and Hafiz M. N. Iqbal
Abstract
In the wake of increasing environmental apprehension
and inevitable depleting petroleum resources, scientific
interest has intensified to utilize agro-industrial wastes as
a potential raw material for the production of platform
chemicals to upsurge the bio-based economy. A broadspectrum of different biomass waste materials, which are
underutilized, bio-renewable, and biodegradable, is produced across the globe in enormous quantities. All these
kinds of biomass wastes comprise various chemical
constituents that might serve as promising starting
feedstocks to manufacture an array of high-value commodities, and intermediates through different transformation routes. This chapter spotlights the biotransformation
of lignocelluloses’ agro-industrial wastes into a variety of
high-value compounds. Besides, the explanation of
various kinds and sources of lignocellulosic biomass, a
number of various biomass bioconversion technologies
are vetted in detail. Furthermore, the valorization of
various biomass wastes for the production of platform
chemicals and bio-based materials are also discussed.
Keywords
Agro-industrialwastes Á Lignocellulose Á Bioconversion Á
Pretreatment methods Á High-value chemicals
1 Introduction
The food and agriculture sector is emerging at a rapid rate. The
rapid population growth, coupled with accelerating economic
development, has engrossed important investment in the food
and agricultural industry, amounting to 75 billion dollars in
2017. With the growth of the agribusiness industry, emerging
waste generation represents an important environmental
problem. Five million tons of waste are produced yearly from
the agricultural sector (Ravindran et al. 2018). Lignocellulose
and starch are the main content of these wastes including
timber and agricultural industry, home, and garden waste.
Around half-plant material is made up of lignocellulose,
which is the most important renewable source of soil. It also
contains cellulose (35–50%), hemicellulose (20–35%), and
lignin (15–25%) strongly linked by various combinations of
covalent and non-covalent bonding (Bharathiraja 2017; Kohli
et al. 2019). In addition to the key nutrients, lignocellulose
contains other organic substances in minute quantity including
fats, proteins, dietary fibers, vitamins, or inorganic compounds such as water, carbon, sulfates, nitrates, and silicates,
which are not actively involved in the development of
lignocellulosic-based substance (Jedrzejczyk 2019; Kumar
2019; Vassilev et al. 2015). Usually, in lignocellulosic materials, the main source of cellulose is glucose composed of
homopolysaccharide linked by b (1-4) glycosidic bonds. The
crystalline structure and fibril junction of cellulose remain
stable due to the inter- and intramolecular linkage of hydrogen
bonding. The cellulose unit is often referred to as that elemental fibril combining the formation of microfibrils (Gollakota et al. 2018; Kannam et al. 2017; Zabed et al. 2017). The
hemicellulose is heterogeneous in nature having different
T. Mehmood (&) Á F. Nadeem
Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology,
University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences-UVAS,
Lahore, 54000, Pakistan
e-mail: tahir.mehmoodbiochem@uvas.edu.pk
S. A. Qamar
Institute of Organic and Polymeric Materials, National Taipei
University of Technology, Taipei, 10608, Taiwan
M. Bilal (&)
School of Life Science and Food Engineering, Huaiyin Institute
of Technology, Huaian, 223003, China
e-mail: bilaluaf@hotmail.com
H. M. N. Iqbal
Tecnologico de Monterrey, School of Engineering and Sciences,
Monterrey, 64849, Mexico
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Inamuddin and A. Khan (eds.), Sustainable Bioconversion of Waste to Value Added Products, Advances in Science,
Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61837-7_22
349