Research Article

From Compost to Colloids—Valorization of Spent Mushroom Substrate

Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128 Mainz, Germany
CENER, Avenida Ciudad de la Innovacion 7, 31621 Sarriguren, Spain
ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., 2019, 7 (7), pp 6991–6998
DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b06710
Publication Date (Web): March 13, 2019
Copyright © 2019 American Chemical Society
*E-mail: wurm@mpip-mainz.mpg.de. Phone: 0049 6131 379581. Fax: 0049 6131 370 330.
ACS AuthorChoice - This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited.

Synopsis

A biorefinery concept to fractionize spent mushroom substrate into carbohydrates and lignin is presented.

Abstract

Abstract Image

Yearly the mushroom industry generates several million tons of spent mushroom substrate (SMS), a mixture of composted soil and fungal mycelium, left after the mushroom harvest. Although containing valuable ingredients like carbohydrates, lignin, and diverse enzymes, the substrate is unutilized and causes immense disposal costs. In order to valorize SMS, it is essential to fractionate the complex mixture into its valuable components, which is a challenge for current biorefineries and has only been partly achieved. We have developed a novel biorefinery strategy in order to separate carbohydrates and soluble lignin from SMS. Therefore, SMS was subjected to two different extraction methods in order to break the insoluble biopolymer residues: A, a thermochemical treatment (water/basic or acidic catalyst) yielding a carbohydrate-enriched liquid fraction; B, an organosolv extraction (with ethanol/water) solubilizing mainly lignin. The carbohydrate fraction possesses surface-active properties and was investigated as a potential biobased surfactant. The soluble lignin fraction was used for the formation of nanocarriers via an inverse miniemulsion polymerization. The lignin-based nanocarriers were biodegradable by laccases, which renders them of high interest for drug delivery systems for advanced plant protection. This novel biorefinery is a powerful strategy for the upcycling of SMS into various high-value products.

The Supporting Information is available free of charge on the ACS Publications website at DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b06710.

  • Tables with compositional analysis of extracts and filter cakes; interfacial tensions; log D values; NMR and FT-IR spectra; SEM and TEM images; SEC elugrams (PDF)

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Article Views: 374 Times
Received 21 December 2018
Published online 13 March 2019
Published in print 1 April 2019
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