(Press-News.org) New Rochelle, NY, December 18, 2014--Pretreatment of cellulosic biomass using cell wall degrading enzymes is a critical step in the release of sugars needed to produce biofuels and renewable, biobased chemicals and materials. A new study that demonstrates and quantifies the impact of enzymatic hydrolysis and drying on the nanostructure and available reaction volume of pretreated hardwoods and switchgrass is published in Industrial Biotechnology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Industrial Biotechnology website until January 18, 2015.
In the article "Cellulases Significantly Alter the Nano-Scale Reaction Space for Pretreated Lignocellulosic Biomass," Dong Yang, Jean-Yves Parlange, and Larry P. Walker Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, measured sugar yield and the accessible reaction space, or pore volume, of mixed hardwoods and switchgrass biomass treated with a mixture of cell wall degrading enzymes. Enzymatic pretreatment resulted in a substantial reduction in pore volume for both types of biomass. Drying of pretreated, enzymatically hydrolyzed biomass led to a decrease in accessible pore volume of as much as 80%, suggesting irreversible pore collapse.
In many respects, the work results in this paper, and in other recent publications, reflect the belief that physical/structural features of biomass are extremely important in defining the rate and extent of hydrolysis.
"One of the key steps in lignocellulosic hydrolysis is speeding up the rate and the extent of the hydrolysis reaction," says Co-Editor-in-Chief Glenn Nedwin, PhD, MoT, CEO and President, Taxon Biosciences. "Access to an understanding of the physical and structural features of biomass are critically important. This paper by Yang et al., offers new insights into this bioconversion process."
INFORMATION:
About the Journal
Industrial Biotechnology, led by Co-Editors-in-Chief Larry Walker, PhD, Biological and Environmental Engineering Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, and Glenn Nedwin, PhD, MoT, CEO and President, Taxon Biosciences, Tiburon, CA, is an authoritative journal focused on biobased industrial and environmental products and processes, published bimonthly online with Open Access options and print. The Journal reports on the science, technology, business, and policy developments of the emerging global bioeconomy, including biobased production of energy and fuels, chemicals, materials, and consumer goods. The articles published include critically reviewed original research in all related sciences (biology, biochemistry, chemical and process engineering, agriculture), in addition to expert commentary on current policy, funding, markets, business, legal issues, and science trends. The Journal offers the premier forum bridging basic research and R&D with later-stage commercialization for sustainable biobased industrial and environmental applications. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Industrial Biotechnology website.
About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Environmental Engineering Science and Sustainability: The Journal of Record. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.
PHILADELPHIA - Type 1 diabetes (T1D) patients who have developed low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) as a complication of insulin treatments over time are able to regain normal internal recognition of the condition after receiving pancreatic islet cell transplantation, according to a new study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, published online in Diabetes. Severe hypoglycemia--a life-threatening complication of insulin treatment for T1D--can occur when the body's defense mechanisms against low blood sugar are broken down ...
Detroit- A Wayne State University interdisciplinary research team in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences has made a surprising discovery: older, more mature motorists -- who typically are better drivers in many circumstances -- are much worse than their younger counterparts when texting while driving. Currently published online and scheduled to be published in print in the January 2015 issue of Accident Analysis and Prevention, the study "The Effects of Texting on Driving Performance in a Driving Simulator: The Influence of Driver Age" explores ...
Many of the worst West Coast winter floods pack a double punch. Heavy rains and melting snow wash down the mountains together to breach riverbanks, wash out roads and flood buildings.
These events are unpredictable and difficult to forecast. Yet they will become more common as the planet warms and more winter precipitation falls as rain rather than snow.
University of Washington mountain hydrology experts are using the physics behind these events to better predict the risks.
"One of the main misconceptions is that either the rain falls and washes the snow away, or that ...
HEIDELBERG, 18 December 2014 - The quality of the colon mucus in mice depends on the composition of gut microbiota, reports a Swedish-Norwegian team of researchers from the University of Gothenburg and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Oslo. The work, published in EMBO reports, suggests that bacteria in the gut affect mucus barrier properties in ways that can have implications for health and disease.
"Genetically similar mice with subtle but stable and transmissible intestinal microbiota showed unexpectedly large differences in the inner colon mucus layer. ...
Eating bilberries diminishes the adverse effects of a high-fat diet, according to a recent study at the University of Eastern Finland. For the first time, bilberries were shown to have beneficial effects on both blood pressure and nutrition-derived inflammatory responses.
Low-grade inflammation and elevated blood pressure are often associated with obesity-related diseases. The study focused on the health effects of bilberries on mice that were fed high-fat diet for a period of three months. Some of the mice were fed either 5% or 10% of freeze-dried bilberries in the diet. ...
The enzyme telomerase repairs cell damage produced by ageing, and has been used successfully in therapies to lengthen the life of mice. Now it has been observed that it could also be used to cure illnesses related to the ageing process. Researchers at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have for the first time treated myocardial infarction with telomerase by designing a very innovative strategy: a gene therapy that reactivates the telomerase gene only in the heart of adult mice, thus increasing survival rates in those animals by 17 % following a heart attack.
Christian ...
Researchers from North Carolina State University have found a way of binding peptides to the surface of gallium nitride (GaN) in a way that keeps the peptides stable even when exposed to water and radiation. The discovery moves researchers one step closer to developing a new range of biosensors for use in medical and biological research applications.
GaN is a biocompatible material that fluoresces, or lights up, when exposed to radiation. Researchers are interested in taking advantage of this characteristic to make biosensors that can sense specific molecules, or "analytes," ...
This news release is available in German.
Physicists are continuously advancing the control they can exert over matter. A German-Spanish team working with researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg has now become the first to image the motion of the two electrons in a helium atom and even to control this electronic partner dance. The scientists are succeeding in this task with the aid of different laser pulses which they timed very accurately with respect to each other. They employed a combination of visible flashes of light and ...
Trophoblasts, cells that form an outer layer around a fertilized egg and develop into the major part of the placenta, have now been shown to respond to inflammatory danger signals, researchers from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) found in a recent study published in Journal of Reproductive Immunology December 2014.
The researchers said their findings were an important step in understanding how inflammatory responses in the placenta can contribute to the development of pregnancy disorders such as preeclampsia.
The trophoblast inflammatory response ...
This news release is available in German.
Puebla del Guzman (Andalusia) / Magdeburg. Being part of the mining area Herrerias in Andalusia, deep waters of Pit Lake Guadiana show extremely high concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2). In the case of a spontaneous ebullition, human beings close-by would be jeopardized. To demonstrate the danger and the possible solution, scientists of the Spanish Institute of Geology and Mining, the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU, Bilbao) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) constructed a pilot ...
