• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.79-88
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• 2008

The production of bioethanol, which is one of the alternative fuel, cause the various problem such as agflation in human society. As a substitute for the feedstock, lignocellulosic biomass have a big potential. However, bioethanol production with cellulosic material is not commercialized due to high cost. Thermochemical pretreatment to improve the rate of enzyme hydrolysis and increase the recovery of fermentable sugar, is required in order to achieve the cost down in bioethanol production. In this study, various problems and technologies for pretreatment is introduced. Acid hydrolysis, alkali hydrolysis, steam explosion, organosolv process, ammonia explosion, and wet oxidation pretreatment remove lignin and hemicellulose, and reduce cellulose crystallinity. Optimization of pretreatment process on various sources of lignocellulosic biomass such as softwood, hardwood, and straw should be performed.

• Plant Biotechnology Reports
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2011

Secondary walls have recently drawn research interest as a primary source of sugars for liquid biofuel production. Secondary walls are composed of a complex mixture of the structural polymers cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. A matrix of hemicellulose and lignin surrounds the cellulose component of the plant's cell wall in order to protect the cell from enzymatic attacks. Such resistance, along with the variability seen in the proportions of the major components of the mixture, presents process design and operating challenges to the bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fuel. Expanding bioenergy production to the commercial scale will require a significant improvement in the growth of feedstock as well as in its quality. Plant biotechnology offers an efficient means to create "targeted" changes in the chemical and physical properties of the resulting biomass through pathway-specific manipulation of metabolisms. The successful use of the genetic engineering approach largely depends on the development of two enabling tools: (1) the discovery of regulatory genes involved in key pathways that determine the quantity and quality of the biomass, and (2) utility promoters that can drive the expression of the introduced genes in a highly controlled manner spatially and/or temporally. In this review, we summarize the current understanding of the transcriptional regulatory network that controls secondary wall biosynthesis and discuss experimental approaches to developing-xylem-specific utility promoters.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.79-84
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• 2016

Biofuel has been considered as promising renewable energy to solve various problems that result from increasing usage of fossil fuels since the early 20th century. In terms of chemical and physical properties as fuel, biobutanol has more merits than bioethanol. It could replace gasoline for transportation and industrial demand is increasing significantly. Production of butanol can be achieved by chemical synthesis or by microbial fermentation. The water hyacinth, an aquatic macrophyte, originated from tropical South America but is currently distributed all over the world. Water hyacinth has excellent water purification capacity and it can be utilized as animal feed, organic fertilizer, and biomass feedstock. However, it can cause problems in the rivers and lakes due to its rapid growth and dense mats formation. In this study, the potential of water hyacinth was evaluated as a lignocellulosic biomass feedstock in biobutanol fermentation by using Clostridium beijerinckii. Water hyacinth was converted to water hyacinth hydrolysate medium through pretreatment and saccharification. It was found that productivity of water hyacinth hydrolysate medium on biobutanol production was comparable to general medium.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.588-598
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• 2017

Currently, bioethanol, a fuel additive for transportation, is produced mainly by using biomass (first generation) such as corn and sugar canes. First generation biomass can cause various problems in terms of increase in agricultural prices and ethical reasons. To address these problems, a nonedible lignocellulosic biomass can be utilized. Agricultural byproducts such as straw, bagasse, and forest byproducts from the wood processing industry. Therefore, production of wood based bioethanol can be an effective utilization route of second generation biomass, and its raw materials are more abundant than first generation resources. Furthermore, it is possible to secure cheap raw materials. One of the biggest advantages of using biofuels is that it contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gases by minimizing the environmental impact, unlike fossil fuels. In this study, we investigated the greenhouse gas reduction effects that can be achieved through the use of Lignocellulosic bioethanol and government policies on renewable energy currently being implemented in ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines). In these four countries, policies and incentives related to biofuels have been developed. It is expected that the reduction ratio of carbon dioxide emission and the mixed biofuel will be gradually increased in the future.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Applied Microbiology Conference
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• 1979.04a
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• pp.113.1-113
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• 1979

Each year, vast amount of agricultural crop residues are produced (about 60 percent of the total crop production), which have not been effectively utilized because they are bulky and lignocellulosic, thus having little fuel energy per unit volume. Using treated plant residues as animal feeds could result in an ultimate saving of fossil fuel energy and a more effective utilizat ion of products created by the photosynthetic process. Feeding the residues to animals would decrease the pollution potential, but these residues are difficult for even a ruminant animal to digest. If cellulosic wastes produced from cereal grain straw and wood could be digested, land now used for producing forage add grain cnuld be shifted to food crops for humans. During the past decade, considerable efforts were made to utilize crop residues. These utilization methods can be broadly grouped into for categories: (1) direct uses, (2) mechanical conversions, (3) chemical conversions and (4) biological conversions. Agricultural crop residues consist mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, pectin, andother plant carbohydrates. The nature of the constituents of these residues can be best utilized as one of the five FS: Fuel, Fiber, Fertilizer, Feed and Food. Many processes have teen proposed and some are in industrial production stage. However, economics of the process depend on the location where availability of other competitive products are different.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.45-52
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• 2014

Torrefaction and hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) are productive methods to reclaim energy from lignocellulosic biomass. The hydrophobic, homogenized, energy dense and carbon rich solid fuel can be obtain from torrefaction and hydrothermal carbonization. Dead leaves were carbonized in a stainless steel reactor of volume 200 ml with torrefaction ($250-270^{\circ}C$) for 120 minutes and hydrothermal carbonization ($200-250^{\circ}C$) for 30 minutes, with mass yield solid fuel ranging from 57-70% and energy content from 16.81MJ/kg to 22.01 MJ/kg compare to the biomass. The char produced from torrefaction process possess high energy content than hydrothermal carbonization. The highest energy yield of 89.96% was obtained by torrefaction at $250^{\circ}C$. The energy densification ratio fluctuated in between 1.15 to 1.30. On the basis of pore size distribution of the chars, the definition of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) was used as a classification standard. The pore diameter was ranging within 11.09-19 nm which play important role in water holding capacity in soil. Larger pores can hold water and provide passage for small pores. Therefore, it can be concluded that high pore size char can be obtained my HTC process and high energy content char of 22.01 MJ/Kg with 34.04% increase in energy can be obtain by torrefaction process.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.114.1-114.1
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• 2011

Bioenergy production from lignocellulosic biomass and agriculture wastes have been attracted because of its sustainable and non-edible source. Especially, canola is considered as one of the best feedstock for renewable fuel production. Oil extracted canola and its agriculture residues are reuseable for bioethanol production. However, a pretreatment step is required before enzymatic hydrolysis to disrupt recalcitrant lignocellulosic matrix. To increase the sugar conversion, more efficient pretreatment process was necessary for removal of saccharification barriers such as lignin. Alkaline pretreatment makes the lignocellulose swollen through solvation and induces more porous structure for enzyme access. In our previous work, aqueous ammonia (1~20%) was utilized for alkaline reagent to increase the crystallinity of canola residues pretreatment. In this study, significant factors for efficient soaking in aqueous ammonia pretreatment on canola residues was optimized by using the response surface method (RSM). Based on the fundamental experiments, the real values of factors at the center (0) were determined as follows; $70^{\circ}C$ of temperature, 17.5% of ammonia concentration and 18 h of reaction time in the experiment design using central composition design (CCD). A statistical model predicted that the highest removal yield of lignin was 54% at the following optimized reaction conditions: $72.68^{\circ}C$ of temperature, 18.30% of ammonia concentration and 18.30 h of reaction time. Finally, maximum theoretical yields of soaking in aqueous ammonia pretreatment were 42.23% of glucose and 22.68% of xylose.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2007

This study was reviewed on the bioethanol production from biomass resources and feedstock supply in America. U.S. Department of Energy (USDE) and the u.s. Department of Agriculture USDA) are both strongly committed to expand the role of biomass as an energy source. They support biomass fuels and products as a way to reduce the need for oil and gas imports, to strengthen the nation's energy security and environmental quality. And it was envisioned a 20 percent replacement of the current U.S.transportation fuel consumption in 2030. Also it was reviewed policies to encourage the expanding of Bio-based fuel use to replace gasoline, such as Clean Air Act, Federal Clean Fuel Program and American Jobs Creation Act. In feedstock supply it was assumed forest biomass will be supplied in 368 million dry tons yearly and the agriculture derived biomass adopted by new technologies and land use change will be supplied in 998 million dry tons, including highly 818 million dry tons of lignocellulosic biomass such as perenial crops (hybrid trees, grasses) corn stover, other crop residues. This amount is 5 times to the amount from based current agricultural technology and crop land.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.111-118
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• 2007

Global warming crisis due primarily to continued green house gas emission requires impending change to renewable alternative energy than continuously depending on exhausting fossil fuels. Bioenergy including biodiesel and bioethanol are considered good alternatives because of their renewable and sustainable nature. Bioethanol is currently being produced by using sucrose from sugar beet, grain starches or lignocellulosic biomass as sources of ethanol fermentation. However, grain production requires significant amount of fossil fuel inputs during agricultural practices, which means less competitive in reducing the level of green house gas emission. By contrast, cellulosic bioethanol can use naturally-growing, not-for-food biomass as a source of ethanol fermentation. In this respect, cellulosic ethanol than grain starch ethanol is considered a more appropriate as a alternative renewable energy. However, commercialization of cellulosic ethanol depends heavily on technology development. Processes such as securing enough biomass optimized for economic processing, pretreatment technology for better access of polymer-hydrolyzing enzymes, saccharification of recalcitrant lignocellulosic materials, and simultaneous fermentation of different sugars including 6-carbon glucose as well as 5-carbon xylose or arabinose waits for greater improvement in technologies. Although it seems to be a long way to go until commercialization, it should broadly benefit farmers with novel source of income, environment with greener and reduced level of global warming, and national economy with increased energy security. Mission-oriented strategies for cellulosic ethanol development participated by government funding agency and different disciplines of sciences and technologies should certainly open up a new era of renewable energy.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.10-15
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• 2016

In this new energy economy era, the importance of renewable energy resource needs to be highly addressed, as the demand of energy dramatically increases and fossil fuel is being exhausted. Lignocellulosic biomass is considered as the sustainable and renewable feedstock to produce biochemicals and biofuels that are the alternative for petroleum derived products. Furfural is a natural precursor for the range of furan based chemicals and solvents such as methylfuran, tetrahydrofuran, methyltetrahydrofuran, ethyltetrahydrofuryl ether, ethyl levulinate, levulinic acid, and alkanes. Thus, furfural should be a renewable platform chemical for biochemicals and renewable biofuels. In this paper, the concept of biorefinery, furfural production and its applications are briefly reviewed.