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Processing, Production and Prospects of Biomass

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Science and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2024) | Viewed by 488

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Science and Engineering, Energy Technology, Åbo Akademi University, 20500 Turku, Finland
Interests: energy and process technology; chemical engineering; biomass gasification
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

As a renewable energy source derived from plants, animals or waste, biomass can be considered as an important and sustainable resource in many countries. From biomass, we can obtain biofuels that, in turn, could be converted to energy. Nevertheless, the production of biomass requires a large amount of land and water; its large-scale production will also cause damage to forests and soils. In addition, biomass production aimed at energy conversion can be seasonal, and its production is location dependent. Damage to the land provided by intensive biomass production will also affect the food supply, further causing food security problems and higher food prices. This is one motivation for which second- and third-generation biofuels are preferred to the first generation.

The negative social impact of biomass usage must be addressed to cater for real sustainable development. This demands higher-performance and cost-effective technologies. In addition, we need to efficiently implement concepts like reuse, recycle, valorization and circular economy.

This Special Issue aims to discuss the processing, production and prospects of biomass. We welcome research results from researchers including but not limited to:

  • Technologies and processes for bio-energy conversion;
  • Gasification, pyrolysis processes and hydrothermal carbonization of biomass;
  • Bioethanol production;
  • Catalysts and catalytic conversion of biomass;
  • Bioreactors for bioenergy and biochemical production;
  • Biomass residue reuse, waste valorization of biomass;
  • Preparation, characterization and applications of biomass-derived carbon materials;
  • Advanced techniques in metabolic engineering and bioprocess engineering;
  • Impact of biomass production on agriculture, industry and the food sector;
  • Environmental and climate impacts of biomass production.

Dr. Cataldo De Blasio
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • biomass
  • biofuels
  • biochar
  • biocoal
  • bio-oil
  • biochemicals
  • biocomposites
  • lignocellulose
  • biopolymers
  • biobased materials
  • pretreatment
  • cellulose
  • hemicellulose
  • lignin
  • nanocellulose
  • gasification
  • pyrolysis
  • hydrothermal carbonization
  • carbonization
  • metabolic engineering
  • gas fermentation
  • biotechnology
  • bioprocess engineering
  • thermochemical conversion
  • biorefinery
  • fermentation
  • torrefaction
  • biogas
  • anaerobic digestion
  • syngas
  • catalysis
  • wastes
  • residues
  • upgrade
  • valorization biomass
  • biomass cultivation
  • biomass growth
  • vegetation carbon cycle
  • soil amendment
  • renewable resources
  • energy efficiency
  • renewable raw materials
  • food industry
  • paper industry

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 3904 KiB  
Article
Fenton-Based Treatment of Flax Biomass for Modification of Its Fiber Structure and Physicochemical Properties
by Nasrin Aliasgharlou, Duncan E. Cree and Lee D. Wilson
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(14), 6133; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14146133 - 15 Jul 2024
Viewed by 256
Abstract
The availability of a sustainable technique for degumming lignocellulose fibers is a challenge for the fiber processing industry. Removal of non-cellulosic content from lignocellulose fibers is essential for improving their mechanical and chemical properties, which makes the fibers more suitable for various applications. [...] Read more.
The availability of a sustainable technique for degumming lignocellulose fibers is a challenge for the fiber processing industry. Removal of non-cellulosic content from lignocellulose fibers is essential for improving their mechanical and chemical properties, which makes the fibers more suitable for various applications. Herein, a catalytic Fenton-based oxidation process was employed to isolate microcellulose fibers from raw flax fibers. Various complementary methods such as FT-IR/NMR spectroscopy and TGA were used to obtain insight into the thermal behavior of the treated fibers. The morphology of the fibers was studied using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), whereas the surface chemical properties of the fibers was evaluated by a dye-based adsorption method, along with a potentiometric point-of-zero-charge method. To obtain fibers with suitable properties, such as uniform fiber diameter, several Fenton reaction parameters were optimized: pH (7), reaction time (15 h), iron sulfate (2 wt.%), and hydrogen peroxide (10 wt.%). The results indicate that, under the specified conditions, the average diameter of the raw fibers (12.3 ± 0.5 µm) was reduced by 58%, resulting in an average diameter of 5.2 ± 0.3 µm for the treated fibers. We demonstrate that the treated fibers had a lower dye adsorption capacity for methylene blue, consistent with the smoother surface features of the treated fibers over the raw flax fibers. Overall, this study contributes to utilization of the Fenton reaction an efficient oxidation technique for the production of lignocellulose fibers with improved physicochemical properties, such as reduced fiber diameter distribution, in contrast with traditional alkali-based chemical treatment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Processing, Production and Prospects of Biomass)
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