Arabinoxylans: A new class of food ingredients arising from synergies with biorefining, and illustrating the nature of biorefinery engineering

Arabinoxylans (AX) are hemicellulose polysaccharides comprising a linear backbone of xylose sugars with arabinose residues attached along the chain. They offer interesting functional properties that could have application as a new class of food ingredients or for non-food applications. The emergence in recent decades of biorefineries gives a context in which commercial production of a portfolio of AX products could be feasible, through integration with bioethanol production, using ethanol to precipitate the AX. Extending the concept, AX fractions of different functionality can be precipitated at different ethanol concentrations, giving further scope for efficiencies through bioethanol pinch analysis, while producing a portfolio of products with different potential markets and end uses. The current work demonstrates the potential of AX fractions extracted from sugarcane bagasse as bread ingredients. Bagasse AX fractions increased the water absorption in dough formulations, by more than double their own weight for fractions larger than 10 kDa, and increased dough development time in a Chopin Mixolab. As well as promising in their own right, AX also illustrate the more general opportunity for synergies between biorefining and the food industry, with the rise of biorefineries giving opportunities to provide the food industry with new ingredients not currently available.