A biotechnological process efficiently co-produces two high value-added products, glucose and xylooligosaccharides, from sugarcane bagasse

• A process for co-production of glucose and XOS from SB was designed.
• XRSB from NaOH–H2O2 pretreatment had the highest cellulose content and conversion.
• Conversion of XRSB to glucose at 98.69% was achieved.
• The achieved conversion of SB xylan to XOS at 57.36% was the highest in the literature.
• The glucose of 34.43 g and XOS of 5.96 g were co-produced from 100 g raw SB.

In this study, a co-production of two high value-added products, glucose and xylooligosaccharides (XOS), was investigated by utilizing sugarcane bagasse (SB) within a multi-product bio-refinery framework optimized by Box–Behnken design-based response surface methodology. The developed process resulted in a maximum cellulose conversion of xylan-removed SB, 98.69 ± 1.30%, and a maximum extracted SB xylan conversion into XOS (xylobiose and xylotriose) of 57.36 ± 0.79% that was the highest SB xylan conversion reported in the literature, employing cellulase from Penicillium oxalicum EU2106 and recombinant endo-β-1,4-xylanase in Pichia pastoris. Consequently, a mass balance analysis showed that the maximum yields of glucose and XOS were 34.43 ± 0.32 g and 5.96 ± 0.09 g per 100 g raw SB. Overall, this described process may be a preferred option for the comprehensive utilization of SB.