Natural laccase mediators separated from water-washed solution of steam exploded corn straw by nanofiltration and organic solvent fractionation.

Artificially synthetic mediators of laccase had the limitation of high cost and possible toxicity. The separation of natural laccase mediators from water-washed solution (WWS) of steam exploded corn straw (SECS) was studied using nano-filtration and successive organic solvents extraction. Results indicated that the UV absorption intensity of nano-filtrated WWS was significantly enhanced. The UV absorption intensity of each extractive from WWS could be ranked as ether extractive (EE)>ethyl acetate extractive (EAE)>chloroform extractive (CE). Decoloration of crystal violet catalyzed by laccase/EE was higher than that by laccase/ABTS, which was 66.95% and 61.9% at 8h, respectively. All the decoloration rates of malachite green at 60min using EE, EAE and ABTS as mediator were both more than 80%. This research would benefit for broaden the source of laccase mediator and reduce the using cost of laccase/mediator system.