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大麻生产商和经销商打开了一个巨大的市场。然而，以四氢大麻酚为主要成分的大麻产品主要存在于植物的叶子和果实中，由于对茎、茎和根的处理，会造成物流问题。这些残留物只含有一小部分有效成分，不能用于提取THC。根据加拿大大麻法，目前没有规定处理这些残留物的方法。唯一的规定是，残留物必须变成惰性和不可用的，最常见的是通过一个复杂的分散程序，包括切碎和与其他产品混合。残留物的数量必然会随着大麻产量的增加而增加，因此必须开发和实施超越基本堆肥或焚烧的价值稳定技术。一种创新的、增值的、大麻茎和根的替代方法是进一步加工残留物，提取纤维素糖，生产大麻食用产品。该项目旨在开发该过程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.