From Agri-food Wastes to Enzyme Production: A Systematic Review with Methodi Ordinatio

Responsible resource management is crucial, mainly on the challenge represented by food and agro-industrial wastes. These wastes have significant environmental impacts. Government and scientists are looking for ways to value these materials and the use of these residues to produce enzymes is a promising alternative.

This systematic review provides a comprehensive analysis of scientific production related to the use of agri-food wastes to produce enzymes through microbial processes. The Methodi Ordinatio, a methodology for collecting, classifying and, selecting scientific articles, was chosen to evaluate trends and challenges in this field of research.

We selected 114 relevant articles out of 608 on the main subject. Brazil, India, and China were the leading countries in publications, accounting for 63% of all publications. The most used by-products were cereals grain wastes (27.2%), fruit wastes (24.8%), and grass/leaves wastes (10.4%). Cellulases and xylanases were the main enzymes studied (31 and 25 articles, respectively) and Aspergillus niger was the most used microorganism (27 articles). Batch systems were the choice for all studies, with 62.2% being developed in solid-state fermentation (SSF).

Agri-food waste and biotechnology can contribute to innovations in enzyme production, benefiting various industrial sectors.