There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

1.0. Introduction 4044 2.0. Biomass Chemistry and Growth Rates 4047 2.1. Lignocellulose and Starch-Based Plants 4047 2.2. Triglyceride-Producing Plants 4049 2.3. Algae 4050 2.4. Terpenes and Rubber-Producing Plants 4052 3.0. Biomass Gasification 4052 3.1. Gasification Chemistry 4052 3.2. Gasification Reactors 4054 3.3. Supercritical Gasification 4054 3.4. Solar Gasification 4055 3.5. Gas Conditioning 4055 4.0. Syn-Gas Utilization 4056 4.1. Hydrogen Production by Water−Gas Shift Reaction 4056

/pdf/synthesis-of-transportation-fuels-from-biomass-chemistry-3sckhzoqoz.pdf

Synthesis of transportation fuels from biomass: chemistry, catalysts, and engineering.

Sustainable production of renewable energy is being hotly debated globally since it is increasingly understood that first generation biofuels, primarily produced from food crops and mostly oil seeds are limited in their ability to achieve targets for biofuel production, climate change mitigation and economic growth. These concerns have increased the interest in developing second generation biofuels produced from non-food feedstocks such as microalgae, which potentially offer greatest opportunities in the longer term. This paper reviews the current status of microalgae use for biodiesel production, including their cultivation, harvesting, and processing. The microalgae species most used for biodiesel production are presented and their main advantages described in comparison with other available biodiesel feedstocks. The various aspects associated with the design of microalgae production units are described, giving an overview of the current state of development of algae cultivation systems (photo-bioreactors and open ponds). Other potential applications and products from microalgae are also presented such as for biological sequestration of CO 2 , wastewater treatment, in human health, as food additive, and for aquaculture.

/pdf/microalgae-for-biodiesel-production-and-other-applications-a-54vmwufrsu.pdf

Microalgae for biodiesel production and other applications: A review

Biomass is an important feedstock for the renewable production of fuels, chemicals, and energy. As of 2005, over 3% of the total energy consumption in the United States was supplied by biomass, and it recently surpassed hydroelectric energy as the largest domestic source of renewable energy. Similarly, the European Union received 66.1% of its renewable energy from biomass, which thus surpassed the total combined contribution from hydropower, wind power, geothermal energy, and solar power. In addition to energy, the production of chemicals from biomass is also essential; indeed, the only renewable source of liquid transportation fuels is currently obtained from biomass.

The Catalytic Valorization of Lignin for the Production of Renewable Chemicals

Biofuels produced from various lignocellulosic materials, such as wood, agricultural, or forest residues, have the potential to be a valuable substitute for, or complement to, gasoline. Many physicochemical structural and compositional factors hinder the hydrolysis of cellulose present in biomass to sugars and other organic compounds that can later be converted to fuels. The goal of pretreatment is to make the cellulose accessible to hydrolysis for conversion to fuels. Various pretreatment techniques change the physical and chemical structure of the lignocellulosic biomass and improve hydrolysis rates. During the past few years a large number of pretreatment methods have been developed, including alkali treatment, ammonia explosion, and others. Many methods have been shown to result in high sugar yields, above 90% of the theoretical yield for lignocellulosic biomasses such as woods, grasses, corn, and so on. In this review, we discuss the various pretreatment process methods and the recent literature that...

http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/datastore/234-1388.pdf

Methods for Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass for Efficient Hydrolysis and Biofuel Production

Fatty acid ester of cellulose and preparing same

Supercritical water treatment (380°C/100 MPa/8 s) was applied to extractive-free sapwood portion of Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) and the fractionated products were comparatively characterized, for water-soluble portion and water-insoluble portion composed of methanol-soluble portion and methanol-insoluble residue. As a result, the water-soluble portion was determined to be composed of carbohydrate-derived products such as organic acids, sugar-decomposed products, lignin-derived products, etc. The methanol-soluble portion was, on the other hand, mainly composed of lignin-derived products, whereby it consisted of solely guaiacyl-type lignin, representing the nature of softwood. The methanol-insoluble residue was also mainly composed of lignin to be 92.0% in its content. Moreover, the phenolic hydroxyl content determined by aminolysis method was 36.3 PhOH/100 C9. Furthermore, an alkaline nitrobenzene oxidation analysis indicated that, the methanol-insoluble residue was less in oxidation products compared to untreated sample. These lines of evidence suggest that methanol-insoluble residue is composed of lignin with more condensed-type of linkages with high phenolic hydroxyl groups. In addition, the water-soluble portion could be utilized for organic acid production, whereas the methanol-soluble portion and its insoluble residue for phenolic chemical production.

Fractionation of Japanese Cedar and Its Characterization as Treated by Supercritical Water

3-21. Conversion of Woody Biomass to Liquid Fuel by Supercritical Methanol Treatment

Preliminary investigation on hot-compressed water pretreatment of Japanese beech powder for fuel-ethanol production.

We study the effect of carrier doping to the Mott insulator on the Penrose tiling, aiming at clarifying the interplay between quasiperiodicity and strong electron correlations. We numerically solve the Hubbard model on the Penrose-tiling structure within a real-space dynamical mean-ﬁeld theory, which can deal with a singular self-energy necessary to describe the Mott insulator and spatial inhomogeneity. We ﬁnd that the strong correlation effect produces a charge distribution unreachable by a static mean-ﬁeld approximation. In a small doping region, the spectrum shows a site-dependent gap just above the Fermi energy, which is generated by a singularly large self-energy emergent from the Mott physics and regarded as a real-space counterpart of the momentum-dependent pseudogap observed in a square-lattice Hubbard model.

Shiro Saka

Papers

Fatty acid ester of cellulose and preparing same

Fractionation of Japanese Cedar and Its Characterization as Treated by Supercritical Water

3-21. Conversion of Woody Biomass to Liquid Fuel by Supercritical Methanol Treatment

Preliminary investigation on hot-compressed water pretreatment of Japanese beech powder for fuel-ethanol production.

Doped Mott insulator on a Penrose tiling