Ingazeira (Inga vera Willd.), a plant native to Brazil is commonly used by Brazilians for its medicinal properties and the value of its wood. Various plants with therapeutic properties and economic importance benefit from mycorrhizal inoculation, which produces larger quantities of therapeutic compounds. However, the effects of mycorrhizal inoculation on ingazeira have not yet been studied. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) on the growth of seedlings and production of primary and secondary metabolites, and to determine the total foliar antioxidant activity in ingazeira seedlings. Soilinoculum was applied to the root region of ingazeira plantlets, which were transplanted into sacs containing 1.2 kg of soil and 10 %

Alkaline deacetylation has emerged as a promising chemistry for pretreatments performed prior to enzymatic saccharification of lignocellulosic biomass. This process avoids complex pressurized reactors and opens new opportunities for lignin covalorization. In this work, we evaluate the chemical and morphological response of sugar cane bagasse and straw submitted to alkaline treatments. Alkaline solutions for deacetylation (0.4% w/w NaOH, 70 °C, 3 h) as well as proximal conditions (0.1–0.7% NaOH, 55–85 °C, 1–5 h) chosen by 23 experimental design were evaluated. The deacetylation treatment removes ∼90% of the acetyl groups and 20–30% of the lignin from both bagasse and straw, while removal of ∼20% of the xylan and glucan is observed in straw, but not in bagasse. Considering nanoscale structural alterations, neither cellulose cocrystallization (evaluated by X-ray diffraction) nor formation of lignin aggregates (evaluated by thermoporometric signature) are observed after the alkaline conditions, in contrast to observations after hydrothermal treatments. Furthermore, calorimetric thermoporometry as well as scanning and transmission electron microscopies show substantial introduction of nanoscale porosity and loosening of the tissue and cell wall structures, indicating desirable mechanical weakening and gains in enzyme accessibility. These results provide fundamental and practical knowledge for biorefineries based on alkaline deacetylation of sugar cane bagasse and straw.

No abstract