Furfurylation of wood is of interest worldwide as an environmentally friendly modification process. It is widely assumed that low-molecular weight furfuryl alcohol (FA) can penetrate into wood cells and polymerize in-situ during the process, resulting in substantial improvement in the physical-mechanical properties and durability of wood. In this study, confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM)...

Bio-oil produced from fast pyrolysis of biomass contains sugars originating from cellulose. Traditional quantification of sugars in bio-oil is accomplished by gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS) via derivatization, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), ion-exchange chromatography (IC), or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methodologies. These techniques are highly specific for ...

Intermetallic compounds are garnering increasing attention as efficient catalysts for improved selectivity in chemical processes. Here, using a ship-in-a-bottle strategy, we synthesize single-phase platinum-based intermetallic nanoparticles (NPs) protected by a mesoporous silica (mSiO2) shell by heterogeneous reduction and nucleation of Sn, Pb, or Zn in mSiO2-encapsulated Pt NPs. For selective ...

A nanocomposite carbon was prepared by grafting a carbonizable polymer, poly(furfuryl alcohol) (PFA), to a single-wall carbon nanotube (SWNT). The SWNT was first functionalized with arylsulfonic acid groups on the sidewall via a method using a diazonium reagent. Both Raman and FTIR spectroscopies were used to identify the functional groups on the nanotube surface. HRTEM imaging shows that the S...

The layered structure of two smectites (montmorillonite and saponite) are modified by the insertion SiO2–ZrO2 nanoparticles, with a Si/Zr molar ratio 5, to form porous clay heterostructures (PCHs). These PCHs exhibit clear improvement textural acid properties in comparison starting clays, due formation pillared presence Zr species, which provide an increase amount Lewis sites. materials studied...

We present a new symbolic computational approach to elucidate the biochemical networks of living systems de novo and we apply it to an important biomedical problem: xenobiotic metabolism. A crucial issue in analyzing and modeling a living organism is understanding its biochemical network beyond what is already known. Our objective is to use the available metabolic information in a representatio...

Furfural and hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) are representative inhibitors among many inhibitive compounds derived from biomass degradation and saccharification for bioethanol fermentation. Most yeasts, including industrial strains, are susceptible to these inhibitory compounds, especially when multiple inhibitors are present. Additional detoxification steps add cost and complexity to the process a...

The catalytic reduction of renewable furfural into furfuryl alcohol for various applications is in the ascendant. Nonetheless, conventional chemo-catalysis hydrogenation always suffers from poor selectivity, harsh conditions, and expensive catalysts. Herein, to overcome serious technical barriers production, an alternative bio-electrocatalytic system was established under mild neutral where dis...

Jiankun Liang 1,2,†, Zhigang Wu 3,†, Hong Lei 1,*, Xuedong Xi 1, Taohong Li 1 ID and Guanben Du 1,* 1 Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Wood Adhesives and Glued Products, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming 650224, China; [email protected] (J.L.); [email protected] (X.X.); [email protected] (T.L.) 2 Material Science and Technology College, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083...