Production of prebiotic xylooligosaccharides from industrial-derived xylan residue by organic acid treatment

In order to produce xylooligosaccharides (XOS) with excellent prebiotics properties from industrial-derived xylan residue (IDXR), maleic acid (MA) and citric acid (CA) were used as catalysts under different treatment conditions. Under the identified optimum conditions (0.1 M of MA and 0.5 M of CA at 150 °C for 40 min), CA showed a better ability than MA to maximumly produce XOS. The yields of XOS from MA and CA treatments were 48.9% and 52.3%, which were comprised of X2-X6 proportions of 69.47% and 66.70%, respectively. Anaerobic fermentation results demonstrated that both XOS-CA and XOS-MA exhibited pronounced prebiotic activity for proliferating Bifidobacterium adolescentis (B. adolescentis) and Lactobacillus acidophilus (L. acidophilus). XOS-CA possessed the better ability for B. adolescentis to produce the short-chain fatty acid (SCFA), while XOS-MA outperformed XOS-CA for L. acidophilus to produce SCFA. These results imply organic acid treatments can be applied to produce XOS with excellent prebiotic properties from IDXR.