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

加拿大娱乐用大麻合法化为加拿大的生产者和经销商打开了一个巨大的市场。然而，以THC为基础的大麻产品主要存在于植物的叶和果实中，通过处置茎、茎和根造成了后勤问题。这些大麻只含有一小部分有效成分，不能用于提取。根据加拿大大麻法案，目前还没有规定的方法来处理它们。唯一的规定是，残留物必须变成惰性的和不可用的，最常见的是通过一个复杂的分散过程，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，开发和实施超越基本堆肥或焚烧的有价化技术变得势在必行。茎和根的一个创新的、增值的替代方案是进一步加工残留物以提取纤维素糖来生产大麻可食用产品。该项目旨在开发该工艺的关键生物预处理步骤。

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.