Fantastic article and history! My hobby this year has been to read all I can about this topic. Deep eutetic solvents, hydrothermal carbonization, even microbial fuel/electrolyzer cells as well as fresh water and marine algae production for oil are all on the menu. Thank you for writing and sharing your knowledge so generously!
Computational materials scientist here. Maybe this is a naive question since it isn't my field, but is it economically feasible to produce cellulase? My assumption has been that anything requiring precise control over monomeric sequence (e.g., an enzyme or any functional protein) would be expensive to produce in large quantities.
Via black liquor soap acidulation you also get crude tall oil and crude sulfate turpentine from the Kraft process.
For over a century, the Pine Chemicals' industry has been getting valuable, unsubsidized chemicals from this beautiful example of industrial symbiosis... Too bad: otherwise we could depict ourselves as an exciting up-and-coming "unicorn"! ;)
Fantastic article and history! My hobby this year has been to read all I can about this topic. Deep eutetic solvents, hydrothermal carbonization, even microbial fuel/electrolyzer cells as well as fresh water and marine algae production for oil are all on the menu. Thank you for writing and sharing your knowledge so generously!
Nice background on cellulosics Tony. And yes, looking forward to your write-up about MetGen.
Computational materials scientist here. Maybe this is a naive question since it isn't my field, but is it economically feasible to produce cellulase? My assumption has been that anything requiring precise control over monomeric sequence (e.g., an enzyme or any functional protein) would be expensive to produce in large quantities.
Nice coverage of lignocellulosic feedstocks. Hope to hear about industrial applications of various lignins. Also look forward to MetGen's examples.
Nice overview, Tony!
Via black liquor soap acidulation you also get crude tall oil and crude sulfate turpentine from the Kraft process.
For over a century, the Pine Chemicals' industry has been getting valuable, unsubsidized chemicals from this beautiful example of industrial symbiosis... Too bad: otherwise we could depict ourselves as an exciting up-and-coming "unicorn"! ;)
By far the best lignin break down (pun intended) out there! Looking forward to the MetGen piece.