BACKGROUND Enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass (mainly plant cell walls) is a critical process for biofuel production. This process is greatly hindered by the natural complexity of plant cell walls and limited accessibility of surface cellulose by enzymes. Little is known about the plant cell wall structural and molecular level component changes after pretreatments, especially on th...

Compared with batch systems, flowthrough and countercurrent reactors have important potential advantages for pretreating cellulosic biomass, including higher hemicellulose sugar yields, enhanced cellulose digestibility, and reduced chemical additions. Unfortunately, they suffer from high water and energy use. To better understand these trade-offs, comparative data are reported on xylan and lign...

carboxymethyl cellulose (cmc)-polyvinyl alcohol (pvoh) blend film, containing 0-10% cellulose nanowhiskers (cnw), was produced through casting method, while physical properties of the films being investigated. cmc-pvoh-cnw nanocomposites, were prepared with a diluted suspension of cellulose nanowhiskers. nanowhiskers suspension was prepared through acid hydrolysis of cotton linter by sulfuric a...

In this paper, we show that dilute maleic acid, a dicarboxylic acid, hydrolyzes cellobiose, the repeat unit of cellulose, and the microcrystalline cellulose Avicel as effectively as dilute sulfuric acid but with minimal glucose degradation. Maleic acid, superior to other carboxylic acids reported in this paper, gives higher yields of glucose that is more easily fermented as a result of lower co...

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) can be obtained from bamboo pulp by hydrolysis with sulfuric acid. Firstly, the authors conducted a series of experiments under different conditions, and concluded that the optimal parameters were as follows: sulfuric acid concentration 60%, temperature 45 °C, the time is 90 minutes and the solid-liquid ratio is 1:8. Then, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fo...

Bamboo is a potential lignocellulosic biomass for the production of bioethanol because of its high cellulose and hemicelluloses content. In this research, ethanol organosolv pretreatment with dilute sulfuric acid as the catalyst was studied in order to enhance enzymatic saccharification of moso bamboo. The addition of 2% (w/w bamboo) dilute sulfuric acid in 75% ethanol had a particularly strong...

Cellulose sulfuric acid is an efficient metal-free catalyst for the synthesis of 1,3,5-trisubstituted pyrazoles via the condensation of 1,3-diketones and hydrazines. The reaction was carried out in Solvent-free condition at room temperature and the products were isolated in good to excellent yields. Mild reaction conditions, as well as ease of operation and workup are some advantages of the pro...

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) were isolated from corn stalk using sulfuric acid hydrolysis, and their morphology, chemical structure, and thermal stability properties were characterized. The CNCs had an average length of 120.2 ± 61.3 nm and diameter of 6.4 ± 3.1 nm (L/D = 18.7). The degree of crystallinity of the CNCs increased to 69.20% from the 33.20% crystallinity of raw corn stalk fiber, wh...

A novel kind of spherical cellulose nanocrystal (SCNC) suspension was prepared by hydrolysis of microcrystalline cellulose with a mixture of sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid under ultrasonic treatment. The mechanism of SCNC formation and the liquid crystalline properties of their suspensions were investigated. A suspension of spherical particles was usually inclined to form crystallization c...