Optimal enzyme composition for soybean processing

Abstract: Current soy processing typically extracts the oil and mixes and presses carbohydrate and protein together, which makes subsequent protein-carbohydrate separation more difficult, destroys the natural oil body and protein body structures, and may affect their functionalities. Carbohydrate-rich byproducts like the soy molasses generated from making protein concentrate and isolate have limited, undervalued large-volume applications. A new single-step, enzyme-based process that solubilizes or monomerizes the cell-wall polysaccharides such as cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin can produce separate streams of intact oil bodies, protein bodies, and hydrolyzed carbohydrate. The enzymatic process can also be used to convert low-value soybean carbohydrate (such as that in soybean molasses) into good fermentation feedstock for making biofuels and bioproducts. Enzyme is the key to achieve these purposes, and because of the complex carbohydrate involved, the enzyme used needs to have multiple activities including, e.g., cellulase, xylanase, pectinase, α-galactosidase and sucrase. Cellulase, xylanase and pectinase can hydrolyze the cell wall polysaccharides of soybean, while α-galactosidase and sucrase are important to hydrolyze the oligosaccharides stachyose, raffinose and sucrose, particularly for upgrading soybean molasses. We have been investigating the suitable/optimal enzyme compositions for the new enzymatic processing of soybean materials. We will report the results and experience gained in the presentation.

*This project is funded by United Soybean Board. Project # MEAL‐D‐22031‐A and 2322-106-0401.