Interest in generating energy from biomass has grown tremendously in recent years. Corn stover is an agricultural by-product, which is abundant in quantity. Gasification and pyrolysis are efficient methods of harnessing energy efficiently from corn stover. The performances of mathematical models to predict the product gas quality rely on characterization of feed materials and the reaction kinet...

New, rapid, and inexpensive methods that monitor the chemical composition of corn stover and corn stover-derived samples are a key element to enabling the commercialization of processes that convert stover to fuels and chemicals. These new techniques combine near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and projection to latent structures (PLS) multivariate analysis to allow the compositional analysis of hu...

Received, October 3, 2016; Accepted in revised form, October 10, 2016; Approved, October 12, 2016; Available online, November 2, 2016. Cultivation of peanuts provides higher returns compared to other crops, such as; corn, soybeans, and green beans. Peanut is a commercial crop and as an important source of income for farmers either on dry land or in the paddy field of rice crop marks. Peanut ris...

Six Red Maasai sheep were used to investigate the effects of urea treatment and cotton seed cake supplementation of maize stover on intake, digestibility and rumen fermentation parameters. The basal feeds were Rhodes grass (Chloris gayana) hay (H), untreated maize (Zea mays) stover (US) and treated maize stover (TS), each of which was supplemented with 100 g of cotton seed cake (CSC) to make H+...

A stepwise removal of inhibitory compounds by bioabatement combined with hemicellulase supplementation was conducted to enhance cellulose hydrolysis of liquid hot water-pretreated corn stover. Results showed that the fungus Coniochaeta ligniaria NRRL30616 eliminated most of the enzyme and fermentation inhibitors from liquid hot water-pretreated corn stover hydrolysates. Moreover, addition of he...

The microwave liquefaction kinetics of corn stover in the presence of ethylene glycol (EG) using sulfuric acid as a catalyst was studied. The liquefaction apparent rate constant (k) was examined using a first-order reaction model. The k values of corn stover increased from 0.080 min -1 to 0.165 min -1 , with the reaction temperature increasing from 120 o C to 180 o C. The k value of cellulose a...

We investigated potential use of prairie as a Midwestern cellulosic feedstock by conducting a 9 ha side-by-side comparison of maizeand prairie-based systems on fertile soils in Boone County Iowa, USA. Investigated systems were: maize-soybean rotation grown for grain only, continuous maize grown for grain and stover both with and without a winter rye cover crop, and a 31-species reconstructed pr...

Efficient processing, handling, and storage of corn stover, a major crop‐based biomass, require an understanding of the moisture sorption thermodynamic properties of its fractions. Moisture sorption thermodynamic properties of the major corn stover fractions such as leaf, stalk skin, and stalk pith were determined, utilizing the static gravimetric sorption isotherms data in the temperature rang...

Changes in dry weights, reduced N, nitrate, and nitrate reductase activity of various plant parts of the above ground vegetation (stover) and ears of field grown maize were measured at intervals between anthesis and grain maturity. Nonstructural carbohydrate contents were also measured in some instances. Changes in dry weight and reduced N content were used to approximate net in situ photosynth...