Environmentally Friendly Method for the Separation of Cellulose from Steam-Exploded Rice Straw and Its High-Value Applications

Abstract

Separation of cellulose from agricultural straw is one of the key bottlenecks hindering the application of such kind of biomass resources. In this chapter, we provide three environmental-friendly ways for separation of cellulose from agricultural straw pretreated with steam explosion, which include delignification with recyclable water-polar aprotic organic solvent, selective bio-degradation of the lignin component, and extraction of cellulose with imidazolium-based ionic liquids from the steam-exploded rice straw. The isolated rice straw celluloses have been adopted as an enhancement for all-cellulose composites (ACCs) and cellulose/cement composites. Ultra-high tensile strength (650.2 MPa) can be achieved for the ACCs containing the activated straw cellulose fiber (A-SCF). The cellulose/cement composites show a significant promotion in the flexural strength and fracture toughness. The new nonderivative solvent for cellulose, tetrabutylammonium hydroxide (TBAH) aqueous solution with urea as additives has been proved to be manipulable for dissolving cellulose.

Chemical Composition of Lipophilic Compounds From Rice (Oryza sativa) Straw: An Attractive Feedstock for Obtaining Valuable Phytochemicals

“…Rice straw is a lignocellulosic material essentially constituted of cellulose (24.0%), hemicelluloses (27.8%), and lignin (13.5%), with important amounts of ash (17%) that correspond mostly to silica ( Rosado et al, 2021 ). Due to the significant amounts of carbohydrates and lignin, and to its low price and high availability, rice straw has been considered a suitable feedstock for the production of biofuels, biochemicals, and biobased materials in the context of lignocellulosic biorefineries ( Lal, 2005 ; Lu and Hsieh, 2012 ; Kalita et al, 2015 ; Abraham et al, 2016 ; Kumar et al, 2016 ; Gou et al, 2018 ; Swain et al, 2019 ; Bhattacharyya et al, 2020 ; Sharma et al, 2020 ). In addition, rice straw also presents significant amounts of lipophilic compounds (3.4%) that can also be used to obtain valuable phytochemicals of industrial interest ( Rosado et al, 2021 ).…”

Extraction and Characterization of Cellulose Nanofibers From Yellow Thatching Grass (Hyparrhenia filipendula) Straws via Acid Hydrolysis

“…The cellulose content of yellow thatching grass straws (30 %) is much lower than similar species like Miscanthus spp. (45 -44 %), switch grass (40 %), reed canary grass (39 %), rice straw (35 %), and millet straw (41 %) [17][18][19][20]. It is likely that the composition differences result from the different growing conditions of the plants, different stages of growth and, in some cases, the composition of the entire stem is reported by the authors.…”

Fusarium graminearum as a producer of xylanases with low cellulases when grown on wheat bran

“…On the other hand, a study that utilized cellulose-rich agricultural by-products indicated a maximum cellulase production (1.01 U/ml) by F. graminearum with corn stover as substrate [37] . This can be explained by the chemical composition of these residual materials since the chemical composition of wheat bran has a higher hemicellose content (51.8%, mainly arabinoxylans) than cellulose (18.5%), whereas corn stover is made of 35-40% cellulose and only 18-22% hemicellose [ 21 , 38 , 39 ]. Based on this, it can be assumed that wheat bran selectively induced high xylanase activity and low cellulases in F. graminearum Ec220, which was the strain selected for the optimization of factors for xylanase production.…”