Polysaccharides composed of glucose building blocks – glucans – have interesting properties that merit their use as renewable material components in everything from single-use to advanced, high-end applications. The concept relies on the efficient liberation of polysaccharides from plant biomass. A major challenge is to find process conditions that offer selective isolation of targeted components while minimizing deterioration of the polysaccharide structure, chemical, and energy consumption. Another challenge is the selective detection and compositional determination of polysaccharides in plant tissue and isolated fractions. Conventional carbohydrate compositional analyses are typically disruptive and the analyses report the total monosaccharide composition rather than the polysaccharide origin of the sugar units.<br/><br/>We devise strategies for selective polysaccharide extraction and characterization, using optotracing as a novel method for carbohydrate analysis [1-4]. Optotracing utilizes luminescent conjugated oligothiophenes (LCOs) with conformation-dependent optical properties as glucan sensors. When binding to a polysaccharide substrate, it adopts a specific molecular conformation that generates a unique optical signature detected by fluorescence microscopy. Optotracing may facilitate the efficient recovery of glucan polysaccharides in biorefining and serve as a non-destructive tool to selectively determine the components in the biomass. Examples from selective detection of glucans in straw, algae, and wood will be presented.

Selective detection and recovery of polysaccharides from biorefining

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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