Cellulose biotechnology

Author: Chen Hongzhang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: Plant fibers are the most abundant renewable resources on Earth, with great potential to be transformed into energy, food, feed, and chemical raw materials. Biotechnology can make this transformation process efficient and clean. This book starts with the main components of plant fibers (such as cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin) and their structures, proposing new concepts such as "component separation," "layered and multi-level utilization," and "full utilization of biomass" for natural cellulose raw materials. Based on this, it focuses on introducing the application of biotechnology in natural cellulose raw materials. It can be seen that treating cellulose raw materials as multi-level resources and transforming them through biotechnology allows them to play a full role in ecological agriculture, clean energy, material chemistry, pulp and paper industries, and other sectors, ultimately forming distinctive ecological industrial parks for natural cellulose raw materials. This book is suitable for scientists, teachers, and graduate students engaged in cellulose research and teaching, as well as for technical personnel and managers involved in agricultural resource utilization and industrial development.
[Preface] Biomass refers to the total amount of materials derived from plant or animal life forms, primarily composed of organic matter. China produces nearly 5 billion tons of biomass annually (dry weight), containing potential equivalent to 2 billion tons of oil, which is three times the country's current primary energy consumption. Among these, plant biomass such as crop straw, sugarcane bagasse, reed, and bamboo exceeds 1 billion tons in total. Structurally, plant biomass is mainly composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, which this book collectively refers to as natural cellulose raw materials. The rise of green chemistry, the proposal of circular economy and sustainable development strategies, have brought significant attention and widespread application to the research and utilization of natural cellulose raw materials. Especially with the emergence and development of biotechnology, it has provided an even broader technical platform for the full utilization of natural cellulose raw materials. Although there are many reports on the application of biotechnology in natural cellulose raw materials, it is regrettable that no specialized books or publications on biotechnology for natural cellulose raw materials have been available in China so far. To address this gap and to share some of the experiences accumulated from decades of research on biotechnology for natural cellulose raw materials with domestic peers, this book was written based on extensive literature review and combined with our own work. We hope it can serve as a stepping stone for China to achieve faster development in biomass utilization technology!
Due to the domestic habit of, the book is titled "Biotechnology of Cellulose." This book begins with the chemical structure of natural cellulose raw materials, then focuses on its biological foundation, and dedicates more space to the application of biotechnology in the development of natural cellulose raw materials. The author's achievements in this field over the past decade are due to the guidance of Professor Gao Peiji and Professor Qu Yinbo from the State Key Laboratory of Microbiology at Shandong University, as well as the engineering education and selfless assistance provided by Researcher Li Zuohu from the Institute of Process Engineering at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which enabled the author to receive excellent systematic training in cellulose biotechnology. The author's research in this field has been supported by the National Key Basic Research Development Program ("973" Program) (2004CB719700), the National High-Tech Research and Development Program ("863" Program) (2003AA514023), and the Important Directional Project of the Knowledge Innovation Engineering at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KJCX2-SW-206). Additionally, the research work of my ten graduate students has made significant contributions to the publication of this book, especially the doctoral students Xu Jian, Liu Liying, Li Dongmin, Jin Shengying, Ding Wenyong, Chi Fei, and the postdoctoral researcher Yang Sen, who participated in writing some chapters and numerous textual tasks. During the compilation of this book, reference was made to a large number of domestic and international books and journal articles written by predecessors and peers. The author sincerely expresses gratitude to all of them. If there are any shortcomings in this book, the author sincerely invites readers to point them out and is welcome to provide guidance.