Glycerol pretreatment is a promising method for the environmentally-friendly transformation of lignocellulosic materials into sustainable cellulose-rich raw materials (i.e., biopolymer) to fabricate biocomposites. Here, a comparison of aqueous acidified glycerol (AAG) pretreatment of wheat straw (WS) with alkaline, hot water, and dilute acid pretreatments on the thermal and mechanical characteristics of their fabricated composite board is presented. A comparison of total energy expenditure during WS pretreatment with AAG and other solutions was estimated and a comparative influence of AAG processing on lignocellulosic constituents and thermal stability of WS fiber was studied. Results imply that AAG pretreatment was superior in generating cellulose- rich fiber (CRF) as compared to other pretreatments and enhanced the cellulose contents by 90% compared to raw WS fiber. Flexural strength of acidic (40.50 MPa) and hot water treated WS composite (38.71 MPa) was higher compared to the value of 33.57 MPa for untreated composite, but AAG-treated composites exhibited lower values of flexural strength (22.22 MPa) compared to untreated composite samples. Conversely, AAG pretreatment consumed about 56% lesser energy for each kg of WS processed as compared to other pretreatments. These findings recognize that glycerol pretreatment could be a clean and new pretreatment strategy to convert agricultural waste into high-quality CRF as a sustainable raw material source for engineered biocomposite panels.

@en

Due to the importance of water for human survival and scarcity of freshwater resources, wastewater treatment has become very important recently. Some persistent pollutants, such as pesticides, are not removed even after multiple conventional wastewater treatment techniques. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are one of the novel techniques that can be used to treat these persistent compounds. Photocatalytic ozonation is a promising AOP that combines photocatalysis and ozonation for synergistic effects and faster degradation of persistent pollutants. However, usually, only a photocatalyst is used while combining photocatalysis and ozonation. In this work, both a photocatalyst and ozonation catalyst have been simultaneously used for the degradation of commercially available CONFIDOR® pesticide, a Bayer product with Imidacloprid as the active ingredient. TiO2 is employed as a photocatalyst, and Fe-coated Zeolite is employed as an ozonation catalyst. The results show that the reaction rate increases by 1.4 times if both catalysts are used as compared to the use of one photocatalyst only. Almost complete removal (>99%) of pollutant is achieved after 20 min with the simultaneous use of a catalyst when imidacloprid with an initial concentration of 100 mg/L is subjected to 250 W/m2 UV of a wavelength of 253.7 nm and 100 mg/h ozone, where it takes 30 min if only one photocatalyst is used. The paper also explores the effect of initial concentration, UV intensity, catalyst dose and catalyst reuse while also briefly discussing the kinetics and mechanism.@en

A primitive element for the development of sustainable pyrolysis processes is the study of thermal degradation kinetics of lignocellulosic waste materials for optimal energy conversion. The study presented here was conducted to predict and compare the optimal kinetic parameters for pyrolysis of various lignocellulosic biomass such as wood sawdust, bagasse, rice husk, etc., under both isothermal and non-isothermal conditions. The pyrolysis was simulated over the temperature range of 500–2400 K for isothermal process and for heating rate range of 25–165 K/s under non-isothermal conditions to assess the maximum pyrolysis rate of virgin biomass in both cases. Results revealed that by increasing the temperature, the pyrolysis rate was enhanced. However, after a certain higher temperature, the pyrolysis rate was diminished which could be due to the destruction of the active sites of char. Conversely, a decrease in the optimum pyrolysis rate was noted with increasing reaction order of the virgin biomass. Although each lignocellulosic material attained its maximum pyrolysis rate at the optimum conditions of 1071 K and 31 K/s for isothermal and non-isothermal conditions, respectively, but under these conditions, only wood sawdust exhibited complete thermal utilization and achieved final concentrations of 0.000154 and 0.001238 under non-isothermal and isothermal conditions, respectively.

@en