Pre-treatment of cannabis biomass for food grade enzymatic hydrolysis and sugar production

加拿大娱乐用大麻的合法化为加拿大的生产商和经销商打开了一个巨大的市场。然而，以四氢大麻酚为基础的大麻产品，主要存在于植物的叶子和果实中，通过处理茎、茎和根，造成了物流问题。这些残留物只含有一小部分有效成分，不能用于四氢大麻酚的提取。根据《加拿大大麻法》，目前没有规定的处理方法。唯一的规定是残留物必须变成惰性和不可用的，通常是通过一个复杂的分散程序，包括粉碎和与其他产品混合。随着大麻产量的增加，残留物的数量必然会增加，因此开发和实施超越基本堆肥或焚烧的增值技术变得势在必行。一种创新的、增值的大麻茎和根替代品是进一步处理残留物，提取纤维素糖，以生产大麻可食用产品。本项目旨在开发该工艺的关键生物质处理步骤。

The legalization of cannabis for recreation purposes in Canada has opened a large market to Canadianproducers and distributors. Cannabis products based on THC, which is found predominantly in the leaves andfruits of the plant, however, cause a logistic problem through the disposal of stems, stalks and roots. Theresidues only contain a small proportion of active ingredients and cannot be used for THC extraction.There are currently no prescribed methods, under the Canadian Cannabis Act, for their disposal. The onlyprovision is that the residues must be rendered inert and unusable, most generally through a complex dispersionprocedure including shredding and mixing with other products.The quantity of residues is bound to increase with increasing cannabis production, and it becomes imperative todevelop and implement valorisation techniques that go beyond basic composting or incineration.An innovative, value-added, alternative for the stems and roots is to further process the residues to extractcellulosic sugars to produce cannabis edible products. This project aims to develop the key biomasspre-treatment step of this process.