Treesearch

In investing in a new venture, companies aim to increase their competitiveness and generate value in scenarios where volatile markets, geopolitical instabilities, and disruptive technologies create uncertainty and risk. The biobased industry poses additional challenges as it competes in a mature, highly efficient market, dominated by petroleum-based companies, and faces signifi cant feedstock availability and variability constraints, limited technological data, and uncertain market conditions for newly developed products. Thus, decision-making strategies and processes for these investment...

This study was to explore the conversion of low-cost bio-residuals into high value-added cellulose nanocrystals. Two enzymatic hydrolyzed residuals (i.e., HRMMW and HRSPW) were collected from two different bio-ethanol producing processes—hydrolyzing medium-milled wood (MMW) and hydrolyzing acid sulfite pretreated wood (SPW), respectively. The results showed that both residuals contained over 20 wt % glucan with a crystallinity of about 30%, confirming the existence of cellulose in a well-organized structure in two bio-residuals. The cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) were successfully extracted...

The Pigorini cemí is an icon of Caribbean colonial history, reflecting early trans-Atlantic crosscultural exchanges. Although well documented, the piece has received surprisingly little systematic study. We present the first structural analysis and radiocarbon dating of the sculpture (modelled at AD 1492–1524), and a brief discussion of the materials from which it is comprised. These include indigenous shell and European glass beads, newly identified feather and hair fibres, and the enigmatic rhinoceros-horn mask carved as a human face. We also address the sculpture’s hidden internal...

Currently, feedstock size effects on chemical pretreatment performance were not clear due to the complexity of the pretreatment process and multiple evaluation standards such as the sugar recovery in spent liquor or enzymatic digestibility. In this study, we evaluated the size effects by various ways: the sugar recovery and coproduct yields in spent liquor, the chemical and thermal properties, and enzymatic digestibility of the pretreated solids. Four initial particle sizes were employed and characterized with the geometric mean diameters, which were 10.40, 2.25, 1.49, and 0.84 mm. The...

tMechanical pretreatment is an effective process for chemical or biochemical conversion of woodybiomass. The deconstruction features of the wood cell wall play an important role in its chemical or bio-chemical processing. In this work, we evaluated the wood cell wall fracture in the early stage of mechanicalpretreatment process conducted with various initial moisture contents. Electronic microscopy (i.e., SEMand TEM) and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) were used to visualize the cellular structurechanges due to cell wall fractures.Results reveal that the enzymatic digestibility...

This study demonstrated the technical potential for the large-scale co-production of sugars, lignosulfonates, cellulose, and cellulose nanocrystals. Ball-milled woods with two particle sizes were prepared by ball milling for 80 min or 120 min (BMW80, BMW120) and then enzymatically hydrolyzed. 78.3% cellulose conversion of BMW120 was achieved, which was three times as high as the conversion of BMW80. The hydrolyzed residues (HRs) were neutrally sulfonated cooking. 57.72 g/L and 88.16 g/L lignosulfonate concentration, respectively, were harvested from HR80 and HR120, and 42.6 ± 0.5% lignin...

Depolymerizing lignin, the complex phenolic polymer fortifying plant cell walls, is an essential but challenging starting point for the lignocellulosics industries. The variety of ether– and carbon–carbon interunit linkages produced via radical coupling during lignification limit chemical and biological depolymerization efficiency. In an ancient fungus-cultivating termite system, we reveal unprecedentedly rapid lignin depolymerization and degradation by combining laboratory feeding experiments, lignocellulosic compositional measurements, electron microscopy, 2D-NMR, and thermochemolysis....

We designed, constructed, and tested a new device that can measure the rheological properties of lignocellulosic biomass slurries with high solids concentrations (>25%) containing large particles (>10 mm), and that can operate at high temperatures (>230
C), high pressures (>2.8 MPa), and low pH (<1.0). Rheological properties measured with this Lignocellulosic Biomass Rheometer (LCBR) are consistent with those measured with another instrument. Biomass samples investigated are yield stress materials, consistent with previous reports. For modest temperatures, the viscosity decreases reversibl...

The acquisition of reduced nitrogen (N) is essential for plant life, and plants have developed numerous strategies and symbioses with soil microorganisms to acquire this form of N. The evolutionary history of specific symbiotic relationships of plants with soil bacteria, however, lacks evidence from the fossil record confirming these mutualistic relationships. Here we use modern plants in the N-fixing clade of rosids to develop a geochemical method to assess the presence of symbiotic relationships with N-fixing soil bacteria via δ15N values of tree rings. Application of this method to...

Determining the species source of logs and planks suspected of being Araucaria araucana (Molina) K.Koch (CITES Appendix I) using traditional wood anatomy has been difficult, because its anatomical features are not diagnostic. Additionally, anatomical studies of Araucaria angustifolia (Bertol.) Kuntze, Araucaria heterophylla (Salisb.) Franco, Agathis australis (D.Don) Lindl., and Wollemia nobilis W.G.Jones, K.D.Hill & J.M. Allen have reported that these taxa have similar and indistinguishable anatomical characters from A. araucana. Transnational shipments of illegal timber obscure their...