• Mycobiology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.205-209
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• 2007

Ergosterol involves in fungal cell growth as a major component in fungal cell membranes. It can be an indicator that shows the fungal activity, and its content depends on the fungal strains, culture, growth conditions and so on. In this study, fungal activities and growth patterns of three white-rot fungi strains isolated in Korea were evaluated by determination of ergosterol contents during the incubation. Wood decay test and chemical analyses of wood were also performed to verify the relationship between fungal activity and wood degrading capacity of white-rot fungi for 60 days. In the results of experiments, it is considered that the test strains selectively degrade large amount of lignin in wood at the early stage of decay. Especially, Phanerochaete chrysosporium showed the best capability on selective degradation of lignin among the test fungi. It is suggested that the determination of ergosterol content in the fungal culture during the incubation is the simple and effective screening method of white-rot fungi for the application to biopulping of wood.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.321-331
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• 2020

Background: The patatin-related phospholipase AIII family (pPLAIIIs) genes alter cell elongation and cell wall composition in Arabidopsis and rice plant, suggesting diverse commercial purposes of the economically important medicinal ginseng plant. Herein, we show the functional characterization of a ginseng pPLAIII gene for the first time and discuss its potential applications. Methods: pPLAIIIs were identified from ginseng expressed sequence tag clones and further confirmed by search against ginseng database and polymerase chain reaction. A clone showing the highest homology with pPLAIIIβ was shown to be overexpressed in Arabidopsis using Agrobacterium. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction was performed to analyze ginseng pPLAIIIβ expression. Phenotypes were observed using a low-vacuum scanning electron microscope. Lignin was stained using phloroglucinol and quantified using acetyl bromide. Results: The PgpPLAIIIβ transcripts were observed in all organs of 2-year-old ginseng. Overexpression of ginseng pPLAIIIβ (PgpPLAIIIβ-OE) in Arabidopsis resulted in small and stunted plants. It shortened the trichomes and decreased trichome number, indicating defects in cell polarity. Furthermore, OE lines exhibited enlarged seeds with less number per silique. The YUCCA9 gene was downregulated in the OE lines, which is reported to be associated with lignification. Accordingly, lignin was stained less in the OE lines, and the expression of two transcription factors related to lignin biosynthesis was also decreased significantly. Conclusion: Overexpression of pPLAIIIβ retarded cell elongation in all the tested organs except seeds, which were longer and thicker than those of the controls. Shorter root length is related to auxinresponsive genes, and its stunted phenotype showed decreased lignin content.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.320-325
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• 1994

These studies were conducted to investigate the chemical composition changes in in vitro digestibility for the improvement of nutritive value of rice straw by alkaline hydrogen peroxide. The content of neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin in rice straw was decreased with higher level of $H_2O_2\;(pH 11.5)$. The content of ADF, cellulose and ash of the rice straw washed after $H_2O_2\;(pH 11.5)$ treatment tended to be increased but NDF, hemicellulose and lignin were decreased with higher concentration of $H_2O_2\;(pH 11.5)$. In the rice straw washed after alkaline hydrogen peroxide treatment the decomposition of cellulose and lignin was effective in $pH\;11.5{\sim}12.5$, in smaller cutting size and $55^{\circ}C$. The in vitro organic matter digestibility was increased with higher $H_2O_2$ concentration and smaller cutting size of rice straw.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.227-230
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• 2011

Pulps were separated from wood chips using an Electron beam irradiation (EBI) treatment without a NaOH-AQ (anthraquinone) treatment for cooking. The methods were based on a hot water treatment after EBI and two-step bleaching processes. Chemical compositions and FT-IR spectroscopy demonstrated that the content of lignin and hemicellulose in the bleached wood pulps treated with various EBI dose decreased with an increase of EBI doses. Specifically, the lignin in the bleached with pulps treated at 600 kGy of EBI dose was almost completely removed. Moreover, TGA analysis showed that a thermal stability increased with increasing the content of cellulose but the lignin decomposed slowly over the wide region.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.447-452
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• 2016

It is imperative to develop an effective pathway to depolymerize lignin into liquid fuel that can be used as a bioheavy oil. Lignin can be converted into liquid products either by a solvent-free thermal cracking in the absence air, or thermo-chemical degradation in the presence of suitable solvents and chemicals. Here we show that the solvent-assisted liquefaction has produced promising results in the presence of metal-based catalysts. The supercritical ethanol is an efficient liquefaction solvent, which not only provides better solubility to lignin, but also scavenges the intermediate species. The concentrated sulfuric acid hydrolysis lignin (CSAHL) was completely liquefied in the presence of solid catalysts (Ni, Pd and Ru) with no char formation. The effective deoxy-liquefaction nature associated with scEtOH with aid hydrodeoxygenation catalysts, resulted in significant reduction in oxygen-to-carbon (O/C) molar ratio up to 61%. The decrease in oxygen content and increase in carbon and hydrogen contents increased the calorific value bio-oil, with higher heating value (HHV) of $34.6MJ{\cdot}Kg^{-1}$. The overall process is energetically efficient with 129.8% energy recovery (ER) and 70.8% energy efficiency (EE). The GC-TOF/MS analysis of bio-oil shows that the bio-oil mainly consists of monomeric species such as phenols, esters, furans, alcohols, and traces of aliphatic hydrocarbons. The bio-oil produced has better flow properties, low molecular weight, and high aromaticity.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.213-225
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• 2021

In this paper, we investigated the carbonization characteristics of lignin hydrochar prepared by hydrothermal carbonization and established a model for predicting the carbonization degree using near-infrared spectroscopy and partial least squares regression. The carbon content of the hydrothermally carbonized lignin at the temperature of 200 ℃ was higher by approximately 3 wt% than that of the untreated sample, and the carbon content tended to gradually increase as the heating time increased. Hydrothermal carbonization made lignin more carbon-intensive and more homogeneous by eliminating the microparticles. The discriminant and predictive models using near-infrared spectroscopy and partial least squares regression approppriately determined whether hydrothermal carbonization has been applied and predicted the carbon content of hydrothermal carbonized lignin with high accuracy. In this study, we confirmed that we can quickly and nondestructively predict the carbonization characteristics of lignin hydrochar manufactured by hydrothermal carbonization using a partial least squares regression model combined with near-infrared spectroscopy.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.257-263
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• 2012

The selection of suitable delignification conditions and optimization of process variables is crucial to the successful operation of chemical pulping processes. Soda pulping of Carpolobia lutea was investigated, as an alternative raw material for pulp and paper production. The process was optimized under the influence of three operational variables, namely, temperature, time and concentration of cooking liquor. Equations derived using a second - order polynomial design predicted the pulp yield and lignin dissolution with errors less than 8% and 11% respectively. The maximum variations in the pulp yield using a second order factorial design was caused by changes in both time and alkali concentration. Optimum pulp yield of 43.87% was obtained at low values of the process variables. The selectivity of lignin dissolution was independent of the working conditions, allowing quantitative estimations to be established between the pulp yield and residual lignin content within the range studied.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.67-79
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• 2015

This article presents the result of laboratory study conducted on expansive soil specimens treated with lignin, rice husk powder (RHP) and rice husk ash (RHA). The amount of lignin produced from paper industry and RHP were varied from 0 to 20% and RHA from 0 to 10% by weight. The treated specimens were subjected to unconfined compressive strength (UCS),swelling test and Atterberg limit tests. The effect of additives on UCS and atterberg limit test results were reported. It was observed that the additives and curing duration had a significant effect on the strength value of treated specimens. Generally (except the sample treated with 20% RHP for 3-day) with increasing additive and curing duration the UCS value increases. A RHP content of 15% was found to be the optimum with regard to 3-day cure UCS.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.131-137
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• 2007

In this study, the biodegradation test on lignocellulose under sulfate reducing conditions was carried out. In particular, the interaction between cellulose and lignin was investigated with various g-cellulose/g-lignin (C/L) ratios: 42.15, 4.59, 2.51, 1.14 and 0.7. It was shown that the rate of cellulose degradation decreased in proportion to the lignin content. Assuming first order degradation kinetics, the consequences of competitive inhibition were graphically shown for different C/L ratios. The relation between cellulose reduction rate and C/L ratio was expressed by logarithm function with a determination coefficient of 0.97. Lignocellulose reduction rate was also described as a logarithm function of C/L ratio showing a inhibition effect by lignin. In the mean time, the rate of lignin decomposition was higher at C/L ratio of 2.51 and 1.14 compared with C/L ratios of 4.59 and 0.7, indicating that excessive extra carbon source is not appropriate for lignin biodegradation.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.364-368
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• 2007

The objective of this study was to characterize organic mater decomposition with application of livestock manure compost in upland soil. Six different composts, which were chicken (CHM), pig (PIM), and cow (COM) manure compost added and chicken (CHMS), pig (PIMS), cow (COMS) manure compost with sawdust added, were prepared for this study. These composts have different composition of crude carbohydrate (hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin). The buried-bag method was used to determine the rate of organic mater decomposition and the changes of crude carbohydrate content during 36 months in the field. In all treatment, hemicellulose content was sharply decreased within 8 months, but considerable amount of lignin was remained after 36 months. After 40 months, the rates of carbon decreasing were 81, 80, 72, 69, 67, and 64 % for CHM, PIM, COM, CHMS, PIMS, and COMS, respectively. The estimated equation of carbon decreasing rate (D), $D=aT^b$, was fit to the carbon decreasing rate vs. elapsed time (T) using a non-linear regression procedure. After 40 months, significant difference of carbon decreasing rate between observed and estimated was not found. The relationship between constant a, b and hemicellulose content in the compost was not observed in this experiment. The cellulose and lignin content in the compost were positively correlated to the constant b and negatively correlated to the constant a.