Sugar Profiling of Extracted Solubles from Poultry Litter Feedstock and Biochar by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry.

Poultry litter feedstock and biochar were each ground in a mortar and pestle and passed through a 500-micron sieve and analyzed for carbohydrate content and monosaccharide composition.  Soluble components were extracted from both samples with hot water for 3 h.  The suspensions were spun at 3000 rpm at room temperature for 20 min and the soluble-containing extracts were quick-frozen in dry ice and lyophilized.  About 500 µg of dried soluble extracts were subjected to acidic methanolysis at 80^oC for 18 h and per-O-trimethylsilyl (TMS) derivatives of the monosaccharide methyl glycosides were analyzed by combined gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) with inositol as internal standard.  Results showed that the hot water soluble extract from poultry litter feedstock had 12.8% carbohydrate content.  On the other hand, the poultry litter biochar was devoid of carbohydrates.  The sugar profile of feedstock soluble carbohydrates included arabinose, rhamnose, fucose, xylose, glucuronic acid, galacturonic acid, mannose, galactose, glucose, and N-acetyl galactosamine.  Glucose, arabinose, xylose, and galactose accounted for 27.8%, 25.7%, 22.3%, and 11.9%, respectively, of the total number of moles of monosacccharides in the soluble carbohydrates of poultry litter feedstock