Guest Editors
Junli Ren, Professor, State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering, School of Light Industry and Engineering, South China University of Technology, China
Dr. Junli Ren received her doctoral degree in the South China University of Technology, China, in 2007. Her research interests have been focused on the exploitation of new technologies to pretreat lignocellulosic biomass and the highly efficient transformation of hemicelluloses into platform chemicals and advanced biomaterials. Also, she has interests in the fabrication of lignocellulose-based carbon fiber paper with highly efficient catalytic properties for environmental purification.
Fengxue Xin, Professor, State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China
Dr. Fengxue Xin received her doctoral degree from National University of Singapore, in 2016. His research focus is mainly on the bioconversion of waste lignocellulose into valuable chemicals such as butanol, succinic acid, et al. through the single or microbial consortia.
Feng Peng, Professor, Beijing Key Laboratory of Lignocellulosic Chemistry, Beijing Forestry University, China
Dr. Feng Peng received his doctoral degree in the South China University of Technology, China, in 2010. His research interests have been focused on fractionation of lignocellulosic biomass and hemicelluloses based materials.
Wu Lan, Associate Professor, School of Light Industry and Engineering, South China University of Technology, China
Dr. Wu Lan received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S. in 2016. He joined the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in the EPFL Switzerland for postdoctoral research. In 2020, he moved to the South China University of Technology as Associate Professor. His research interests focus on the isolation and structural characterization of lignin using chemical degradation, NMR, and LC-MS/MS technique. He also works on the catalytic valorization of lignin into valuable chemicals, including hydrogenolysis and oxidative cleavage.
Jing Bian, Associate Professor, Beijing Key Laboratory of Lignocellulosic Chemistry, Beijing Forestry University, China.
Dr. Bian received her Ph.D from the Beijing Forestry University in 2013. Her research interest covers the isolation, characterization, and high value-added utilization of hemicelluloses from wood and cereal straws.
Summary
Lignocellulose is the most abundant renewable biomass, mainly comprising cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. These components can be fractionated and be further converted into different chemicals and materials, such as paper, bio-ethanol, functional sugars, furan, and phenolics. These products are important to support the development of human society. Additionally, efficient utilization of lignocellulosic biomass is an important way to achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. The efficiency of lignocellulose utilization highly depends on the processing and engineering techniques. The cutting-edge research has been focused on clean production and low energy consumption during lignocellulose processing for the sustainable development industry. And more intense efforts should be made to develop environmental-friendly techniques for lignocellulose valorization into valuable products as alternatives to petroleum-based products.
This Special Issue "Processing and engineering of lignocellulose utilization" mainly covers the research on the application of fundamental sciences of lignocellulose utilization, and the related technologies and engineering for the goal of low-carbon circular economy.
The scope of interests includes the following topics:
1) Pretreatment of lignocellulose
2) Process of lignocellulose into pulp and papermaking
3) Catalytic conversion of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin into bio-based chemicals
4) Lignocellulose biorefinery
5) Fibers protection
6) Low carbon economy sustainability basing on lignocellulose processing
Keywords
Lignocellulose, biomass, utilization, process, engineering, biomaterial, chemicals, bioenergy
Published Papers
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Open Access
ARTICLE
Investigation of the Interaction Mechanism between Lignin Structural Units and Enzyme
Lijing Huang, Penghui Li, Kangjie Jiang, Wenjuan Wu
Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.11, No.4, pp. 1613-1626, 2023, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2022.023605
(This article belongs to this Special Issue:
Process and Engineering of Lignocellulose Utilization)
Abstract The effect of lignin structural units on enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass was investigated, especially the inhibitory role of lignin in non-productive adsorption with enzymes. Milled wood lignin (MWL) was isolated from different hardwoods of poplar, eucalyptus and acacia. The isolated lignin samples were characterized by elemental analysis, gel permeation chromatography, nitrobenzene oxidation and fourier infrared spectroscopy. The mechanism of lignin structural units on enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose was studied by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). The results showed that different structural units of lignin had different adsorption capacity for enzymes. The results of nitrobenzene oxidation indicated that the S/G ratio…
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Graphic Abstract
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Open Access
ARTICLE
Quantitative Extraction of p-Coumaric Acid and Ferulic Acid in Different Gramineous Materials and Structural Changes of Residual Alkali Lignin
Tanhao Zhang, Shuo Zhang, Wu Lan, Fengxia Yue
Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.11, No.2, pp. 555-566, 2023, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2023.025701
(This article belongs to this Special Issue:
Process and Engineering of Lignocellulose Utilization)
Abstract Ferulic acid (FA) and
p-coumaric acid (
pCA) in bagasse, wheat straw, corn straw, and corncob were extracted by
alkaline hydrolysis and characterized by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry
(GC-MS). It was found that the FA and most of the
pCA in gramineous biomass could be dissociated and released
after being treated with 1 M NaOH at 100°C for 4 h. The yields of
pCA/FA in bagasse, wheat straw, corn straw,
and corncob determined by GC-FID are 39.8/11.5, 13.7/11.0, 28.0/11.0, and 35.1/14.5 mg/g, respectively. The raw
materials and the treated solid residues were characterized by gel-state 2D Heteronuclear Single…
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Graphic Abstract