There is a growing need to consider alternative agricultural strategies that move an agricultural industry focused on food production to one that also supplies the needs of other industrial sectors, such as paper, textiles, biofuels or added-value chemicals, in the context of the so-called lignocellulose biorefinery. Biorefineries use renewable raw materials to produce energy together with a wi...

Energy is a significant cost in the economics of desalinating waters, but water scarcity is driving the rapid expansion in global installed capacity of desalination facilities. Conventional fossil fuels have been utilized as their main energy source, but recent concerns over greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have promoted global development and implementation of energy minimization strategies and ...

Key Laboratory of Materials Physics and Anhui Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China, Institute for Renewable Energy and Environmental Technolog...

Bioregenerative life support technologies for space application are advantageous if they can be constructed using locally available materials, and rely on renewable energy resources, lessening the need for launch and resupply of materials. These same characteristics are desirable in the global Earth environment because such technologies are more affordable by developing countries, and are more ...

Abstract—Thermal insulation materials based on natural fibers represent a very promising area of materials based on natural easy renewable row sources. These materials may be in terms of the properties of most competing synthetic insulations, but show somewhat higher moisture sensitivity and thermal insulation properties are strongly influenced by the density and orientation of fibers. The pape...