Reintroduced solids increase inhibitor levels in a pretreated corn stover hydrolysate

Following detoxification of the liquid hydrolysate produced in a corn stover pretreatment process, inhibitor levels are seen to increase with the re-addition of solids for the ensuing hydrolysis and fermentation processes. The solids that were separated from the slurry before detoxification of the liquor contain approx 60% (w/w) moisture, and contamination occurs owing to the diffusion of inhibitors from the moisture entrained in the porous structure of the corn stover solids into the bulk fluid. This evidence suggests the need for additional separation and detoxification steps to purge residual inhibitors entrained in the moisture in the solids. An overliming process to remove furans from the hydrolysate failed to reduce total organic acids concentration, so acids were removed by treatment with an activated carbon powder. Smaller carbon doses proved more efficient in removing organic acids in terms of grams of acid removed per gram of carbon powder. Sugar adsorption by the activated carbon powder was minimal.     

红外光谱法分析淀粉接枝聚丙烯酸酯共聚物的各级结构

研究玉米淀粉接枝聚丙烯酸酯共聚物的各级结构，主要探讨去除均聚物和玉米淀粉侧链的方法。发现以环己烷为溶剂，用索氏萃取法除去均聚物比用苯萃取法时间短、效果好；用HCl酸解法除去淀粉侧链比用HClO4氧化法简单实用。用红外光谱进一步验证了各级结构的官能团，证实了所合成的共聚物是玉米淀粉接枝聚丙烯酸酯共聚物。     

重金属Pb2+对玉米苗生长的影响

以水栽培的玉米幼苗为材料，用不同浓度的醋酸铅溶液处理后，分别在第10天、第20天、第30天对玉米苗的根、茎、叶分别进行Pb^2＋含量测定。分析结果：Pb^2＋在玉米体内的分布表现为根〉叶〉茎；玉米中的叶绿素含量均降低；随着Pb^2＋浓度的增大，玉米细胞的膜透性表现根〉叶〉茎依次升高；Pb^2＋对玉米的伤害率的大小表现为根〉叶〉茎。该实验为进一步研究农作物对重金属Pb^2＋的耐性和重金属Pb^2＋在农作物体内的分布提供了可参考的数据。     

Rapid biomass analysis

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 hundreds of samples in 1 d at a cost of about $10 each. The new NIR/PLS rapid analysis methods can also be used to support a variety of research projects that would have been too costly to pursue by traditional methods.     

Cellulase retention and sugar removal by membrane ultrafiltration during lignocellulosic biomass hydrolysis

Technologies suitable for the separation and reuse of cellulase enzymes during the enzymatic saccharification of pretreated corn stover are investigated to examine the economic and technical viability of processes that promote cellulase reuse while removing inhibitory reaction products such as glucose and cellobiose. The simplest and most suitable separation is a filter with relatively large pores on the order of 20–25 mm that retains residual corn stover solids while passing reaction products such as glucose and cellobiose to form a sugar stream for a variety of end uses. Such a simple separation is effective because cellulase remains bound to the residual solids. Ultrafiltration using 50-kDa polyethersulfone membranes to recover cellulase enzymes in solution was shown not to enhance further the saccharification rate or overall conversion. Instead, it appears that the necessary cellulase enzymes, including β-glucosidase, are tightly bound to the substrate; when fresh corn stover is contacted with highly washed residual solids, without the addition of fresh enzymes, glucose is generated at a high rate. When filtration was applied multiple times, the concentration of inhibitory reaction products such as glucose and cellobiose was reduced from 70 to 10 g/L. However, an enhanced saccharification performance was not observed, most likely because the concentration of the inhibitory products remained too high. Further reduction in the product concentration was not investigated, because it would make the reaction unnecessarily complex and result in a product stream that is much too dilute to be useful. Finally, an economic analysis shows that reuse of cellulase can reduce glucose production costs, especially when the enzyme price is high. The most economic performance is shown to occur when the cellulase enzyme is reused and a small amount of fresh enzyme is added after each separation step to replace lost or deactivated enzyme.     

Measurement of rheological properties of corn stover suspensions

Corn stover is currently being evaluated as a feedstock for ethanol production. The corn stover suspensions fed to reactors typically range between 10 and 40% solids. To simulate and design bioreactors for processing highly loaded corn stover suspensions, the rheologic properties of the suspension must be measured. In systems with suspended solids, rheologic measurements are difficult to perform owing to settling in the measurement devices. In this study, viscosities of corn stover suspensions were measured using a helical ribbon impeller viscometer. A calibration procedure is required for the impeller method in order to obtain the shear rate constant, k, which is dependent on the geometry of the measurement system. The corn stover suspensions are described using a power law flow model.     

Microextraction by packed sorbent liquid chromatography with time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry of triazines employing a molecularly imprinted polymer†

Molecularly imprinted polymers for the determination of triazines were synthesized by precipitation using atrazine as template, methacrylic acid as functional monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as crosslinker, and 2,2′‐azobisisobutrynitrile as initiator. The polymers were characterized by infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy and packed in a device for microextraction by packed sorbent aiming for the preconcentration/cleanup of herbicides, such as atrazine, simazine, simetryn, ametryn, and terbutryn in corn samples. Liquid chromatography coupled with time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry was used for the separation and determination of the herbicides. The selectivity coefficient of molecularly imprinted polymers was compared with that of nonimprinted polymer for the binary mixtures of atrazine/propanil and atrazine/picloram, and the values obtained were 15.6 and 2.96, respectively. The analytical curve ranged from 10 to 80 μg/kg (r = 0.989) and the limits of detection and quantification in the corn matrices were 3.3 and 10 μg/kg, respectively. Intra‐ and interday precisions were < 14.8% and accuracy was better than 90.9% for all herbicides. Polymer synthesis was successfully applied to the cleanup and preconcentration of triazines from fortified corn samples with 91.1–109.1% of recovery.     

NaN_3对玉米萌发过程中超弱光子辐射的影响

为了解读植物种子萌发过程中超弱光子辐射信息的生物学意义,采用呼吸抑制剂NaN3处理萌发玉米种子,跟踪测量和分析了玉米种子萌发过程中超弱光子辐射中自发光子辐射和外界光诱导的延迟光子辐射的变化规律,同时研究了萌发玉米种子鲜质量的变化.结果发现,NaN3同步抑制了萌发玉米自发光子辐射和鲜质量的增长,造成萌发玉米延迟光子辐射的初始光子数和延迟光子辐射积分强度大幅度降低,相干时间减小.机理分析表明,NaN3对呼吸代谢电子传递链的抑制造成的自由基反应减弱是萌发玉米自发光子辐射减小的原因,自发光子辐射强度可以作为玉米萌发状态的信号,延迟光子辐射动力学参数的大小可以表征萌发玉米呼吸代谢的强弱,相干时间是种子细胞组织序性的量度,通过对萌发种子超弱光子辐射的采集和分析可以实现对萌发种子细胞代谢和功能状态变化的灵敏和无损检测.     

Off-line SFE-CGC-ECD analysis of 2,4-D and Dicamba residues in real sugar cane,rice and corn samples

Determination of 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) and Dicamba (2-methoxy-3,6-dichlorobenzoic acid) residues in sugar cane, rice, and corn was carried out both by solid liquid extraction (SLE), as already described in the literature, and by a supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) method developed in our laboratory. The extracts were esterified and cleaned-up by passing through a Florisil column. Extracts were analyzed by high resolution gas chromatography, with electron capture detection. The tested methods presented good recoveries (above 90%); the SFE CO₂/acetone method showed better extraction efficiencies (extracted 30 % more herbicide in real samples), shorter extraction time and lower organic solvent consumption than the SLE method.     

Statistical Optimization for Succinic Acid Production from E. Coli in a Cost-Effective Medium

Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed for optimization of medium components and cultural parameters in cost effective cane molasses based medium for attaining high yield of succinic acid. The important factors obtained by “one-variable-at-a-time-approach” (cane molasses, corn steep liquor, sodium carbonate, and inoculum density) were further optimized by RSM. The optimum values of the parameters obtained through RSM (cane molasses 12.5%, corn steep liquor 7.5%, and sodium carbonate 25 mM) led to almost double yield of succinic acid (15.2 g/l in 36 h) as against “one-variable-at-a-time-approach” (7.1 g/l in 36 h) in 500-ml anaerobic bottles containing 300-ml cane molasses based medium. Subsequently, in 10-l bioreactor succinic acid production from Escherichia coli was further improved to 26.2 g/l in 30 h under conditions optimized through RSM. This fermentation-derived succinic acid will definitely help in replacing existing environmentally hazardous and cost-intensive chemical methods for the production of succinic acid.