Production of flavorful alcohols from woods and possible applications for wood brews and liquors

Abstract

This work explores the utilization of wood for high-value production of novel alcoholic brews and liquors with natural flavors.

Functional “permanently whitened” lignin synthesized via solvent-controlled encapsulation

“…2.1 Lignin "whitening" via solvent-controlled encapsulation First, we describe the whitening of a water-dispersed lignin derivative obtained through simultaneous enzymatic saccharification and comminution (SESC) of plant. [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] SESC process is wet-type ultrafine bead milling with enzymatic saccharification for plants to isolate polysaccharides and lignin as sugar solution and lignin water dispersion from plants without contamination by toxic reagents and byproducts. 23,24 In principle, the SESC could enable the extraction of lignin under extremely mild conditions (i.e., 50 °C, 4 ≤ pH ≤ 6, and 1 psi) without requiring strong toxic chemicals.…”

“…23,24 In principle, the SESC could enable the extraction of lignin under extremely mild conditions (i.e., 50 °C, 4 ≤ pH ≤ 6, and 1 psi) without requiring strong toxic chemicals. The polysaccharides are collected as mono/oligo sugars through the SESC of plants and can be transformed to methane 25 and ethanol 29 via fermentation. The lignin derivative obtained by SESC (later denoted as SESC lignin) is water-dispersible particle with diameters of several tens of nanometers that have the high purity and nondeteriorated characteristic as lignin because of mild reaction condition on the SESC process.…”

Nonflammable UV protective films consisting of clay and lignin with tunable light/gas transparency

“…SESC lignin was prepared from Japanese cedar according to the basic procedures described as follows. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] For SESC treatment, a mixture of cedar powder (10 w/w% for water; 0.01-2 mm4), an enzyme cocktail prepared by combining equal amounts of commercial enzymes OPTIMASH XL containing cellulase and xylanase (10 300 U g À1 ) and OPTIMASH BG containing xylanase and b-glucosidase (6200 U g À1 ) from DuPont™ Genencor® Science, and 100 mM phosphate buffer (pH 6.0) were ground by bead milling (Labstar® LMZ015; Ashizawa Finetech Ltd, Japan) at a peripheral velocity of 14.0 m s À1 at 50 C. Stainless steel inactivates the enzyme. Therefore, the inner walls of the LMZ015 vessel were covered with a ceramic lining to prevent damage to the enzyme.…”

“…In this process, wet-type ultrane bead milling and enzymatic reactions for plants were used to isolate polysaccharides and lignin, which are the main components of plants, as a sugar solution and lignin water dispersion without the use of toxic reagents and the formation of byproducts. 13,14 The obtained sugar solution and lignin water dispersion can be used in the production of methane gas/drinkable alcohol 15,16 and for heat-proong ller/UV absorber, [17][18][19][20][21] respectively.…”

Electrically conducting films prepared from graphite and lignin in pure water

“…To overcome this problem, we recently proposed a novel lignin extraction method called simultaneous enzymatic saccharification and comminution (SESC), in which wet-type ultrafine bead milling and enzymatic reactions for plants are used to isolate polysaccharides and lignin, which are the main components of plants, in the form of sugar solution and lignin water dispersion from plants without the utilization of and contamination by toxic reagents and byproducts ( Shikinaka et al, 2016 ; Navarro et al, 2018 ). The obtained sugar solution and lignin water dispersion can be applied to methane gas ( Navarro et al, 2020 ), drinkable alcohol ( Otsuka et al, 2020 ), and functional polymeric materials, such as heat-proofing fillers ( Shikinaka et al, 2018a ; Sotome et al, 2020 ; Shikinaka et al, 2021 ) and UV absorbers ( Shikinaka et al, 2019 ; Shikinaka et al, 2020 ). The lignin derivatives extracted by SESC (later denoted as SESC lignin) are water-dispersed nanoparticles ( Shikinaka et al, 2016 ).…”