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Eichhornia crassipes(water hyacinth), is considered an aquatic pest. An alternative to solve the excess water hyacinth problem is to use the biomass for second generation ethanol. This process can be divided into: collection of biomass pre-treatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation and distillation. Some chemical processes for pre-treatment of biomass water hyacinths were evaluated to determine which procedure degrades the greater amount of lignin and hemicellulose which least affects the cellulose. Characterization was made from the analysis techniques: TG-DTA, XRD and FTIR. The results revealed that the biomass to water hyacinth the most efficient pre-treatment is chemical hydrolysis with sulfuric acid. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The growing environmental concerns and depletion of fossil fuels resulted in an increased interest in environmentally friendly materials based on natural polymers. Efforts are being made to introduce the lignin in plastic composites such as polypropylene, with the aim of producing bio-based materials with desirable mechanical characteristics. In this study, blends of lignin powder and polypropylene were extruded and testing samples were produced by injection molding process. The produced materials were tested for physical, mechanical and thermal properties. The results showed that the incorporation of the lignin powder in polypropylene matrix resulted in a composite with suitable property application for various industrial fields, especially those were mechanical features are crucial, such as the replacement of engineering plastics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pectin-based membranes with different salts such as LiClO4, KCl, LiClO4-Ir(III) and KCl-Ir(III) contents were prepared and characterized. The most conductive sample of Pectin@KCl exhibits the ionic conductivity of 1.45 × 10−3S.cm−1and 6.31 × 10−3S.cm−1at 25°C and 90°C, respectively. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis reveals the predominantly amorphous nature of the samples and the atomic force microscopy (AFM) images show a roughness of 21.8 and 10.5 nm for the samples of Pectin@KCl and Pectin@LiClO4, respectively. The overall redox stability of 7.0 V suggests that this material has an acceptable stability window for an application in solid state electrochemical devices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Biopolymer-based membranes have particular interest due to their biocompatibility, Biodegradability, easy extraction from natural resources and low cost. The incorporation of Er3+ ions into natural macromolecule hosts with the purpose of producing highly efficient emitting phosphors is of widespread interest in materials science, due to their important roles in display devices. Thus, biomembranes may be viewed as innovative materials for the area of optics. This paper describes studies of luminescent material DNA-based membranes doped with erbium triflate and demonstrates that their potential technological applications may be expanded to electrochromic devices. The sample that exhibits the highest ionic conductivity is DNA10Er, (1.17×10−5 and 7.76×10−4 S.cm−1 at 30 and 100°C, respectively). DSC, XRD and POM showed that the inclusion of the guest salt into DNA does not change significantly its amorphous nature. The overall redox stability was ca. 2.0V indicating that these materials have an acceptable stability window for applications in solid state electrochemical devices. The EPR analysis suggested that the Er3+ ions are distributed in various environments. A small ECD comprising a Er3+-doped DNA-based membrane was assembled and tested by cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry. These electrochemical analyses revealed a pale blue color to transparent color change and a decrease of the charge density from -4.0 to -1.2 mC.cm−2 during 4000 color/bleaching cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] DNA is investigated for several electrochemical applications. [•] Ln3+ make them well suited as luminescent groups, with applications in biotechnology. [•] Thermal and electrochemical stability of electrolytes is adequate for devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]