Cellulosic ethanol is a sustainable alternative to petroleum as a transportation fuel, which could be made biologically from agricultural and forestry residues, municipal waste, or herbaceous and woody crops. Instead of putting efforts on steps overcoming the natural resistance of plants to biological breakdown, our study proposes a unique pathway to improve the outcome of the process by co-pro...

The prevalence of smoking around the world is well known. During the smoking of cigarettes, various toxins in both the mainstream smoke and sidestream smoke are huge threats to people’s health. In this context, the reduction of toxic emissions is indeed a global concern. Engineering of cigarette-related components, including cigarette paper and tobacco, is important for mitigating the negative ...

Cellulosic biofuel is the subject of increasing attention. The main obstacle toward its economic feasibility is the recalcitrance of lignocellulose requiring large amount of enzyme to break. Several engineered yeast strains have been developed with cellulolytic activities to reduce the need for enzyme addition, but exhibiting limited effect. Here, we report the successful engineering of a cellu...

Waste palm dates were subjected to analysis for composition and enzymatic hydrolysis of their flesh fibers. The fruit contained 32% glucose and 30% fructose, while the water-insoluble fibers of its flesh consisted of 49.9% lignin and 20.9% polysaccharides. Water-insoluble fibers were settled to 55% of its initial volume in 12 h. The presence of skin and flesh colloidal fibers results in high vi...

Cellulosic biomass includes agricultural (e.g., corn stover and sugarcane bagasse) and forestry (e.g., sawdust, thinnings, andmill wastes) residues, portions ofmunicipal solid waste (e.g., waste paper), and herbaceous (e.g., switchgrass) and woody (e.g., poplar trees) crops. Such materials are abundant and competitive in price with petroleum, and cellulosic biomass can provide a sustainable res...

In this work the annual plant called Luffa cylindrica (LC) has been characterized and used to prepare macroscopic lignocellulosic fibers and cellulosic nanoparticles, viz. microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) and whiskers, each of which can be used as a reinforcing phase in bionanocomposites. The morphological, chemical, and physical properties of LC fibers were first characterized. The contents of...