• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.54-59
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• 2008

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of pH on the formation of furfural compounds from glucose and fructose reacting with amino acid enantiomers in the Maillard reaction. Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) content was highest at pH 4.0, and decreased with increasing pH. HMF was significantly higher in glucose-based systems than fructose-based systems. Furfuryl alcohol (FFA) and 5-methyl-2-furaldehyde (MF) were not increased with increasing pH, and only small amounts were formed. In addition, 2-furaldehyde (F) was found to increase in the systems, as pH increased. However, the content was small and variable. 2,5-Dimethyl-4-hydroxy-3(2H)-furanone (DMHF) was only found in Glc/D-Asn, Glc/L-Lys and Fru/D-Lys system, but the content was not increased with increasing pH. 2-acetylfuran (AF) was higher in Glc (or Fru)/L-Lys and Glc (or Fru)/D-Lys systems at pH 7.0. However, at pH 4.0, the content of AF was higher in the Glc (or Fru)/Gly and Glc (or Fru)/L-Asn systems. Therefore, this study aimed to observe the effect of pH, sugars and amino acid enantiomers on the production of furfural and related compounds by the Maillard reaction. A clear tendency was observed for some classes of compounds to be more easily formed at higher or lower pH. HMF was more readily formed at lower pH, while FFA, F, DMHF and MF were inhibited by acidic conditions. Particularly, compounds like FFA, F and MF were not affected by pH changes. In addition, DMHF and MF were only formed in L-Lys and D-Lys system.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2023.04a
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• pp.12-12
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• 2023

Plant biomass, or lignocellulose, is one of the most abundant natural resources on earth. Lignocellulosic biomass, such as agricultural and forestry residue, serves as a renewable feedstock for microbial cell factories due to its low price and abundant availability. However, the recalcitrance of lignocellulosic biomass requires a pretreatment process prior to microbial fermentation, from which fermentable sugars including xylose and glucose are generated along with various inhibitory compounds. The presence of furan derivatives, such as 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furaldehyde and 2-furaldehyde (furfural), hampers the microbial conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into value-added commodities. In this study, furfural tolerance was improved by investigating the detoxification mechanism in non-model yeast. The genes encoding aldehyde dehydrogenases were overexpressed to enhance furfural tolerance and resulted in improving cell growth and lipid production that can be converted into biofuel. Taken together, this approach contributes to the understanding of the reducing toxicity mechanism of furfural by the aldehyde dehydrogenases and provides a promising strategy that the use of microorganism as an industrial workhorse to treat efficiently lignocellulosic biomass as sustainable plant derivatives.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.166-172
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• 2000

The life expectation of power transformers is basically dependent on the aging deterioration of insulating paper which can not be obtained from operating transformers. Therefore, it will be very useful if we can manage transformers by indirect analysis of degradation products. "Furan derivatives" are known the decomposition products which are generated by the degradation of cellulose in insulating paper. We proved that 2-furfural is the only measurable product from our transformers, and determined easily the concentration of 2-furfural by HPLC without any specific pretreatments, Compared to concentration of $CO_2$ and CO by GC, the concentration of 2-furfural by HPLC can estimate more accurately aging characteristics of transformers. We expect that these results can be utilized to predict the aging characteristics and life diagnosis of power transformers.