K. Bruno Kubata*, Hiroyuki Horitsu**, Kazuhiro Takamizawa**, Tohru Suzuki** and Keiichi Kawai**

Abstract

Hemicellulose has been extracted from peanut shells by alkali (24% KOH) treatment and ethanol (99.5%) precipitation. On TLC, its acid hydrolysis with 10% sulfuric acid at 100 *C[Celsius degeree] for 2 hr gave only one spot that corresponded to D-xylose with a yield of 45.5%. Also the hemicellulose was digested by crude xylanases from Aeromonas caviae ME-1 and Enterobacter agglomerans ME-2 producing mainly xylose, xylobiose and xylose, respectively.

Key words: peanut shells, xylan, aeromonas caviae, enterobacter agglomerans, xylanases