Production of fuel ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass conventionally includes biomass pretreatment, hydrolysis, and fermentation. The liquor generated during dilute acid pretreatment of biomass contains considerable quantities of pentose sugars as well as various degradation products of sugars and lignin, like furfural, hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF), organic acids, aldehydes and others, which ...

The bonding configuration and the heat of adsorption of a furfural molecule on the Pd(111) surface were determined by ab initio density-functional-theory calculations. The dynamics of pure liquid water, the liquid-solid interface formed by liquid water and the Pd(111) surface, as well as furfural at the water-Pd interface, were investigated by ab initio molecular dynamics simulations at finite ...

bioethanol made from lignocelluloses biomass resources, provides unique environmental, economic and strategic benefits, when compared to gasoline as automobile fuel. to be able to substitute gasoline by bioethanol, one should over come many obstacles, including the production of furfural and hydroxyl-methyl furfural, which are produced when cellulosic materials are treated in the presence of ac...

A novel technique, corona discharge ion mobility spectrometry (CD-IMS), was developed for the qualitative and quantitative determination of 2-furfural (F) and 5-methyl-2-furfural (MF) in aqueous solutions. The limits of detection (LODs) were 5.3 x 10(-3) microg/mL for F and 6.7 x 10(-3) microg/mL for MF. The linear dynamic ranges of 1.16 x 10(-2) to 1.04 microg/mL and 2.20 x 10(-2) to 1.10 micr...

BACKGROUND Reducing the amount of water-soluble fermentation inhibitors like furfural is critical for downstream bio-processing steps to biofuels. A theoretical approach for tailoring absorption polymers to reduce these pretreatment contaminants would be useful for optimal bioprocess design. RESULTS Experiments were performed to measure aqueous furfural partitioning into polymer resins of 5 b...

Furfural derived from pentose sugars is one of the key reactive intermediates for production of hydrocarbons from cellulosic biomass for use as drop-in fuels. Simultaneous extraction into a solvent immiscible in water can substantially enhance furfural yields by removing it from the aqueous environment where the yield would otherwise be limited by its rapid degradation to chars and other carbon...

A sulphated tin ion-exchanged montmorillonite (SO4/Sn-MMT) was successfully prepared by the ion exchange method of montmorillonite (MMT) with SnCl4, followed by the sulphation. This catalysis was applied as a solid acid catalyst for the heterogeneous catalytic transformations of xylose and xylan into furfural in the bio-based 2-methyltetrahydrofuran/H2O biphasic system. These prepared catalysts...

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...

Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling of furfural tosylhydrazones with aryl halides produces 2-furylmethylenepalladium halides, which can undergo intramolecular nucleophilic dearomatization to provide spiroacetal enol ethers. This is the first report on the formation of 2-furylmethylenepalladium halides from stable furfural hydrazones instead of from 2-furylmethyl halides, which are not readily accessibl...

Expression arrays were used to identify 4 putative oxidoreductases that were upregulated (>3-fold) by furfural (15 mM, 15 min). Plasmid expression of one (ucpA) increased furan tolerance in ethanologenic strain LY180 and wild-type strain W. Deleting ucpA decreased furfural tolerance. Although the mechanism remains unknown, the cryptic ucpA gene is now associated with a phenotype: furan resistance.