Effect of steam pretreatment on wood moisture content and characteristics of vacuum drying

The effects of high temperature steam pretreatment on the change in wood moisture content （MC） and characteristics of vacuum drying were investigated in this study. Poplar and manchurian walnut woods were pretreated with high temperature steam at 100~C and 140~C, prior to vacuum drying. A comparison of the characteristics of vacuum drying between steam pretreated wood and untreated wood was carried out. The results show that during steam pretreatment, the MC of wood decreased within a few hours. The reduction of MC varied with the temperature; the higher the temperature, the faster the MC dropped. During the vacuum drying stage, the rates of drying ofpretreated samples were higher than those of untreated samples when MC was below the fiber saturation point. Furthermore, the total drying time of samples treated at a steam temperature of 140~C was lower than that of untreated samples. Therefore, a vacuum procedure after steam pretreatment can effectively shorten the drying time when drying wood.

Characterization of wet microalgal cells pretreated with steam for lipid extraction

Steam pretreatment was employed to disrupt Microalgal cells for lipids extraction.Effects of steam pretreatment on microstructure of microalgal cells were investigated through scanning electron microscopy(SEM)and transmission electron microscopy(TEM).Effect of treatment on lipid extraction was also studied.Microalgal cell walls were distorted after steam pretreatment due to the hydrolysis of organic macromolecules contained in cell wall.Maximum curvature was increased from 1.88×10^(-6) m^(-1) to 1.43×10^(-7) m^(-1) after treatment with the steam at 130℃.The fractal dimension of microalgal cells increased from 1.25 to 1.30 after pretreatment for 15 min,and further increased to 1.47 when the pretreatment time was increased to 60 min.Increased steam pretreatment temperature and time enhanced the hydrolysis of organic macromolecules,and finally destroyed microalgal cell walls at pretreatment temperature of 130℃and pretreatment time of 60 min.Lipid extracted from wet microalgal was significantly increased(2.1-fold)after pretreatment.

Effects of steam explosion pretreatment on the chemical composition and fiber characteristics of cornstalks

This paper investigated the influence of steam explosion pretreatment with or without acid as the catalyst on the chemical composition and sugar contents of corn stalks.The fiber characteristics of the pretreated corn stalks were analyzed with a scanning electron microscope,a FS-300 automatic fiber analyzer and a fully automatic surface and pore analyzer.The results showed that the steam explosion pretreatment did not change the cellulose content of the corn stalks.However,hemicellulose was degraded and a portion of lignin was solubilized in the steam explosion pretreatment process.When acid was added in the steam explosion process,the fiber surface and cell wall structure of corn stalks were damaged,the specific surface area and pore size increased,and fiber length decreased,all of which were beneficial to subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis with cellulase.However,content of polysaccharides decreased after acid steam explosion pretreatment.

Isolation, chemical characterization, and immunomodulatory activity of naturally acetylated hemicelluloses from bamboo shavings

Bamboo shavings, the outer or intermediate layer of bamboo stems, are the bulk of by-products produced in bamboo processing. In this study we investigated the isolation, chemical characterization, and immunostimulatory activity in vitro of the hemicelluloses from bamboo shavings. Shavings were first pretreated by steam explosion. The optimal pretreatment was found to be steam explosion at 2.2 MPa for 1 min. Following this pretreatment, the yield of hemicelluloses reached（2.05±0.22）%（based on the dry dewaxed raw materials）, which was 5.7-fold higher than that of untreated samples. Bamboo-shavings hemicellulose（BSH） was then prepared by hot water extraction and ethanol precipitation from the steam-exploded shavings. Purification of BSH by anion-exchange chromatography of diethylaminoethanol（DEAE）-sepharose Fast Flow resulted in a neutral fraction（BSH-1, purity of 95.3%, yield of 1.06%） and an acidic fraction（BSH-2, purity of 92.5%, yield of 0.79%）. The weight-average molecular weights（Mw） of BSH-1 and BSH-2 were 12 800 and 11 300 g/mol, respectively. Chemical and structural analyses by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy（FT-IR）, 1D（^1H and ^13C） and 2D（heteronuclear single quantum correlation（HSQC）） nuclear magnetic resonance（NMR） spectra revealed that BSH-1 was O-acetylated-arabinoxylan and BSH-2 was O-acetylated-（4-Omethylglucurono）-arabinoxylan. BSH-1 had a higher content of acetyl groups than BSH-2. For the immunomodulatory activity in vitro, BSH and BSH-2 significantly stimulated mouse splenocyte proliferation while BSH-1 had no effect; BSH, BSH-1, and BSH-2 markedly enhanced the phagocytosis activity and nitric oxide production of the murine macrophage RAW264.7 in a dose-dependent manner. Our results suggest that the water-extractable hemicelluloses from steam-exploded bamboo shavings are naturally acetylated and have immunostimulatory activity.