Waste Biorefinery

A PhD thesis on magic fungi

2012-01-16T16:09:00.005+01:00

People have consumed the resources in the world for thousands of years and produced wastes. But, why we still have the resources? The fact is that the good bugs (bacteria and fungi) together with plants and animals recycle the materials we consume!

Zygomycetes are among the fungi that are relatively unknown. We have worked with these fungi since 1999, and are getting more and more interested. These fungi are saprophytes (means they like wastes to grow on), and produce many products such as ethanol, lactic acid, fumaric acid, etc., they produce different types of enzymes, while their biomass is also usefull. Hunders of million people in Indonesia have eaten these fungi every day in form of a food named tempe for hundreds of years. In addition, these fungi are good as fish feed or animal feed. They are probably one of the best friends to human, without we know about it!

We had previously several PhD theses on these fungi and now it is time for Patrik Lennartsson, to see if these fungi can help him to get a PhD :)

Patrik defends his thesis on 9 Februari this year.

Here is his thesis and some published articles and the link to download them:

PhD Thesis:
Zygomycetes and cellulose residuals: hydrolysis, cultivation and applications

Articles:
1-Effects of different growth forms of Mucor indicus on cultivation on dilute-acid lignocellulosic hydrolyzate, inhibitor tolerance, and cell wall composition

2-A pilot study on lignocelluloses to ethanol and fish feed using NMMO pretreatment and cultivation with Zygomycetes in an airlift reactor

3-Spent sulphite liquor for cultivation of an edible Rhizopus sp.

His other articles are on the way to be published!

(Dark field microscopy photograph of submerged growth of Mucor indicus. Photo by Patrik Lennartsson)

Green cars pool in Sweden

2012-01-11T21:49:00.007+01:00

Sweden, as one of the most environmentally friendly contries, consumes today 47% renewable energy according to Swedish Energy Agency, while the rest is nuclear energy and fossil fules. The fossil oil is mainly consumed as fuel for the cars and trucks. There has been therefore a major effort to change the pattern of this branch. Ethanol was the first one introduced in Sweden in 2000 and it is now mixed with gasoline and also sold as 85% as E85 by almost all the gas stations. According to Bil Sweden, 304,984 new cars were registered in 2011, in which 122,460 cars were in the category of environmental cars. It means that 40.2% of the new cars were green cars.

However, among the green cars, there has been big fluctuations in the last few years. Ethanol was dominant a few years ago according to Gröna Bilisters. For exampe, 30% of the new green cars in 2010 were ethanol cars, which reduced to 12% last year. There are now many alternatives of low-consumimg green cars (producing less than 120 g CO2 per km) in the market, particularly diesel cars. It means in 2011, green diesel cars were dominants. However, the new incoming law with the harder definition of green cars, will further change the profile of the green cars in the coming years. The share of biogas cars is now more than 5%. Let's hope for the best development in this market!

(The percentage of newly registered green cars in Sweden in 2011. Complete list of the last few years is here)

2011: Political, economical, social and climate turbulences

2012-01-10T08:50:00.004+01:00

2011 is now passed, a year with global turbulences in almost all the aspects, including politics in e.g. Middle East and North Africa, economics in Europe and USA, social in many countries and also the global climates. The global temperature in 2010 had a record high, but the warmest 13 years were in the last 15 years. Arctic sea ice got a record minimum of 4.33 million km2 in 2011, which is 35% below the average 1979-2000. We heard quite often about severe storms, cyclons, floods, drought, forest fires, and many other natural disasters everywhere in the world. The weather goes toward the extremes in all the aspects. We see for example drought followed by flood. The polititions in the world should wake up and do something! More information about 2001 can be found at World Meterological Organization.

(Global temperature from WMO)

Ethanol prices in EU

2012-01-02T22:57:00.003+01:00

I wish you all had a happy holiday and happy new year, although this time is not a vacation time for all around the world. I am starting this year in my blog with ethanol prices in EU which was recently published as part of a large report from Swedish Energy Agency. Ethanol is the dominant biofuel in the global market and a lot of debates around it. Actually, anything new that comes to the market, bring new debates. I just add the price of ethanol here at the time being!

Narcotic effect of Carbon Monoxide (CO)

2011-12-11T18:42:00.003+01:00

Developing of a society usually is in parity of developing more stress for the people. We have to work harder and harder, and also we affect our environment in different ways. A more developed society usually means also more thermal load, more traffic jams, more noise, more CO2, and more discomfort. People are used to say "it was better before".

There was a recent study on these factors and how they affect the human stress. One interesting point is the level of carbon monoxide (1-15 ppm), which act as narcotic for people living in the heart of the cities and reduces their stress. So, we shouldn't surprise if we see CO addicted people in the cities in line of other drugs :)

Hot climate: good or bad?

2011-12-01T21:37:00.004+01:00

There are some people who don't believe or don't care about climate change. A recent report show that Americans as the most greenhouse gas producers, hesitate if this climate change is because of human activities. Somebody said that this climate change in good for Sweden, since the country become warmer and more suitable to live!

Actually it could be true for Sweden and some other parts of the world. However, the global development is serious and scaring. In a recent report from World Meterological Organization, year 2010 showed to be the warmest year, and 2011 as one of the warmest. Actually, the last 13 warmest years have been in the last 15 years. This development is in parity with CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere. As you can see in this figure, the CO2 level has never been in this level (close to 400 ppm) in the last 400,000 years. So, we should expect the consequences and prepare for different disasters, believe it or not!

Biorefining with water hyacinth in China

2011-11-28T14:53:00.004+01:00

Taihu lake with 2250 km2 is the third largest lake in China. This lake is located in west of Shanghai in an agriculatural province named Jiangsu. It is a very beautiful lake with many islands and also a local tourist attraction. We visited this lake last week. The wastes and wastewater from agriculture, industries and also municipal of the huge population who live around the lake, result in dramatic pollution of the water in the lake. It means the nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphates, etc. in the water is quite high. It is most likely difficult to stop draining of the wastewater into the lake, and it result in growth of algae, so the water becomes green. Therefore, the Chinese authorities decided to cultivate Water Hyacinth in the lake in order to clean the water and reduce the algae blooming. They planted more than 400 ha water hyacinth in the lake. As I saw the results, it had a great impact on water quality. However, the question is now what to do with this 200,000 tons water hyacinth per year. Let's hope our collaboration result in great improvement of the environment in that region.

(Algae blooming in Taihu lake in Chaina)

(Plantation of water hyacinth in the lake)

(Harvesting water hyacinth last week)

Peak oil debate

2011-11-16T16:50:00.003+01:00

It is now many years that we hear about the oil production, if it will increase, decrease or stay as the same level as today. The fact is that the oil resources are limited and cannot end forever. But, we are extracting more and more. In 2010, the global oil production was 86.8 million barrels per day, compared to 84.6 million barrels/day in 2007. However, the current sources of the oil is converting to CO2 by human faster and faster, and we have to find new fields of crude oil and also invest on alternatives. The prognosis of International Energy Agency is the oil production to increase to 96 million barrels per day in 2035. So, we can say that we have a peak in the current oil fields, and perhaps a platue in the total oil productions, but an increase in the natural gas liquids and also the unconventional oils. So, why not to investo more on the oil with the biological sources?

(The IEA’s world oil production)

World subsidies for fossil- or biofuels?

2011-11-04T10:01:00.004+01:00

When talking about biofuels, many actors and authorities complain that biofuels such as ethanol, biogas, biodiesel etc. cannot survive without subsidiary and need governmental financial support. It is a fact and can be true in several cases. However, a recent report from IEA- World Energy Outlook in 2011, shows that the world subsidies to fossil fuels in 2009 and 2010 was about 300 and 409 billion USD, respectively, while the subsidies for the biofuels was less than 20% of this amount.

(The data from IEA, and the picture has borrowed from here)

Green cities in the world

2011-10-27T22:08:00.005+02:00

There is now a competition in the world to have "green", "carbon neutral" and "sustainable" cities. It is an interesting development, in which different cities are going to have less negative impacts on the environment. Hammarby Sjöstad is one of the districts in Stockholm (Sweden), that was established at the end of 1990s to win the olympic competition, but remains as a good example of sustainable cities. It attract several thousands visitors every year from all around the world. Another interesting example is Masdar City in Abu Dhabi (UAE), which is mentioned as the world's first carbon neutral city. Africa will also be part of this competition. The first green city in Africa is planned near Abuja (Nigeria) and called Abuja green city.

Borås is also working in this line since 1980s. The city has a goal to become fossil-free and sustainable city before 2020. The city was a pioneer in Sweden and has had a great development in the past, but still long way to go!

We, other organisms and natural resources!

2011-10-17T21:33:00.003+02:00

There are millions of microorganisms and macroorganisms living on earth. In billions of years, the nature has created a perfect balance and synergy between these organisms and the available resources. If we follow the lifetime and recycling of a material, we realize that there are many different species involved in lifetime of the organisms. Each species take a little bit of the energy available in the material and provide the raw material or food for the next organism. We can follow for example how CO2 become a tree and fruit to serve many species until it becomes CO2 again.

However, we human, cut this chain and consume the materials and convert it directly to CO2 without thinking of other species. It means the lifetime of the materials we use has much shorter lifetime compared to what other species do in nature. More thinking about this fact can create enough jobs and possibility for everybody in the world, without quick consumption of our natural resources!

Waste Recovery in Brazil

2011-10-05T09:22:00.004+02:00

We were last week in Brazil and made three agreements with the mayors and universities in different cities including Fortaleza and Sobral in north east of Brazil and Macae in vicinity of Rio de Janeiro. Macae is the city of petroleum of Brazil with about 80% of the total oil production in Brazil. The population of the city has expanded enormously in the last decades, and is now close to 300,000. Fortaleza is a also a fast growing tourist city with about 2.5 million inhabitants, while Sobral is the second largest city in the same province with about 200 thousand people. Macae and Fortaleza built their Waste Recovery with their municipalities, universities, companies (private and states) and also NGOs. Sobral is also planning to build it soon. Therefore, a lot of exchanges and collaboration between Sweden and Brazil in this field is expected to start soon, in education, visits, project planning, and implementations of various projects in waste treatment and resource recovery. Let's hope the best for our Brazilian partners!

(A child in a fruit market in Fortaleza, whom will hopefully have a better life, when we build a biogas plant in the market)

(Fortaleza, which has one of the best beaches in Brazil)

Hydropower plants: friend or foe?

2011-09-13T20:10:00.007+02:00

Hydropower plants are generally considered as one of the most environmentally friendly methods for production of electricity. That's correct, if all the ecological aspects of the dams are considered. However, there are some cases that the hydropower plants are foe than friend to the environment.

There is a recent debate on Brazilian hydropower plants. The dams in this country result in flooding of the forest area. It result in anaerobic digestion of the organic materials (wood, leaves, etc.) in the water and formation of biogas and methane, which is 21 times worse than CO2 for the environment. Some studies show these hydropower plants to threat the environment more than fossil fuels. I believe it is a complicated case and could be true or not, depending on how to consider the factors. However, what is clear is the necessity of considering all the ecological aspects of each project.

Another similar case is the largest lake in Iran with 5,200 km2 called Orumieh, which is drying most likely because of the bad management and the dams of the feeding rivers. Dryness of this lake will result in disaster for the entire region, in terms of the ecological aspects, spreading the salts, and not least the economy of the people in that area. Lets hope for a higher weight facctor fot the environment in considering such projects.

(A hydropower plant in Brazil. The photo taken from SR)

(The large Urmia lake that is drying now)

Glass recycling in Sweden

2011-09-10T14:00:00.003+02:00

When it comes to recycling of the waste materials, glass is generally one the materials that is considered to be recycled. Sweden has developed dedicated collections of trasparent and color glasses that are avialable close to all residential areas.

The data from 2009 shows that more than 90% of the glasses were recycled in Sweden. This recycling is mainly carried out by a company named "Svenska GlasÅtervinning". It is a good business with 177 million SEK turnover of just this company (data for 2010) as well as good for the environment.

(Recycling center for glasses. Photo from Göteborg Posten)

Making money of hazardous wastes

2011-09-05T22:24:00.012+02:00

I was surfing today on the news, and I saw a conflict in Tehran which was about the wastes of a private hospital and its leakage that run on the street. Actually, this is a problem in many cities and countries.

Hazardous wastes should usually get the first priority in treatment and should not be mixed with other wastes. When talking about the hazardous wastes, we may talk about the hospital wastes, or the wastes containing organics like PCB, heavy metals such as cadmium, acids, bases, corrosive materials, silver, mercury, oils, etc.

One of the big companies in Sweden is SAKAB, that recieves about 500,000 tons/year hazardous wastes from different cities in Sweden. They have different technologies to take care of various hazardous wastes, and produce electricity and heat. It is a double payment for recieving the wastes and also selling the products, with almost nothing left to the environment. I wish them good luck with their work, and hope to see more such companies around the world.

(The plant at SAKAB in Kumla, Sweden that take care of the hazardous wastes)

Swedish Royal Family visited Waste Recovery

2011-09-01T20:08:00.006+02:00

We had great day today with the visit of Swedish King Carl XVI Gustav and the Queen Silvia. As far as I know, it was their first visit to Borås together. It was a great PR for our work in Waste Recovery, which has a total solution to waste problems in its organization, including education, research, planning and implementations of waste treatment and resource recovery. When it comes to this total solution, we can most likely say that Borås is the best in Sweden, Sweden is the best in Europe and Europe is the best in the world.

Both the King and the Queen showed great interest to our work and the model that we develop for a more sustainable world, better environment and a better life of the scavengers!

(The king, queen and me, Photo taken by Borås Tidningen)

Waste Recovery: From Indonesian scavengers to Swedish Royal family

2011-08-22T22:05:00.005+02:00

In Feb. 2006, I traveled to Indonesia to consider starting a research collaboration on ethanol with Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia. However, the huge difference in waste treatment in Sweden and Indonesia, changed our minds and we put waste treatment in focus. It was starting a long jurnery that I and my friend Olle Engström (politition and member of city council in Borås) started together since Nov. 2006.

Today, there are several organization involved in waste recovery, including our university, City of Borås and its political instrument, the research institute SP, the municipal company Borås Energy and Environment, the local authorities in Sjuhärad (several municipalites) and about 15 companies. Our work started in Indonesia and is now extended to Vietnam, China, Nigeria, Brazil, USA, in addition to several other countries that we are now discussing to start collaboration.

There are almost continuous visitors from other countries to Borås and even the model of collaboration (double triple helix) is now extending to develop into other areas.

We are very happy to see this work is even interesting to our royal family. They will visit us next week and will listen to our rector Björn Brorström about waste recovery.

It is great moment for us, who see one day scavengers, one day polititions, one day company managers and one day his magesty Carl XVI Gustav and the Queen Silvia.

(Walking on top of a hill of closed landfill in Sao Paulo, Brazil)

(An scavenger in a gargage sea in Lagos, Nigeria)

(An scavenger in Pontianak, Indonesia)

District heat: A major advantage of Swedish energy system

2011-08-19T08:45:00.003+02:00

District heat (or fjärrvärme in Swedish) is a costly investment, but with many advantages. In many countries in the world there is a network of electricity, but not district heat or chill as we have in Sweden. When you burn coal, oil, nuclear energy, biomass etc. to produce electricity, the efficiency is generally about 40%. It means just 40% of the original energy is recovered in form of electricity, while the rest of the energy (about 60%) will be lost in form of heat. Therefore, we see big cooling towers as part of the power plants.

There is similar problem in industries. When the industries consume energy (electricity, oil etc.) to run their equipment, a major part of this energy is converted to heat, and in many cases, they have to get rid of this energy (heat).

Sweden is a cold country with the average temperature of 4.8 C for the whole country through the year. Many cities in Sweden have district heat system to heat up the houses. The energy companies burn waste, biomass etc. and produce electricity and the rest of the energy is fed to this distric heat system and transported to the households. It creates a good income by:
1) getting paid via collecting the wastes,
2) selling electricity
3) selling district heat
In addition, the companies (such as refineries) with waste heat are connected to this network of district heat. It means an extra income for these companies, while their competitors in other countries have to pay to get rid of this energy.

In Sweden, 69 TWh district heat was produced in 2010, where 9 TWh was lost through the system and 60 TWh was delivered to the households. The energy source was dominated by hosehold wastes and biomass (figure below). The complete report can be found here!

(Distric heat production in Sweden in 2010 from different energy sources)

Energy use in Sweden 2030

2011-08-08T20:23:00.004+02:00

There was a recent report from The Swedish Energy Agency showing the total energy use in Sweden will increase to 662 TWh, which is 5% more than its level in 2007 which was 629 TWh. The prognosis shows 30 TWh increase in electrity production, in which the wind turbines will produce 10 TWh more electricity. When it comes to the market, the industry will incease their energy consumption, while the household and services will reduce their consumptions.

The total consumption of transportation fuels in Sweden will reduce from 126 TWh to 125 TWh. However, the development of different fuels will be different. While the consumption of gasoline will be drastically reduced, the consumption of the biofuels and diesel will be increased. As shown in this fugure, the biggest jump will be the biogas. You can read the whole report here (in Swedish)!

How was the weather?

2011-08-02T20:32:00.004+02:00

Good weather here in Europe means sunny, while bad weather usually corresponds to rainy weather. There are similar definitions among people in many countries. However, in several parts of the world, people are suffering from the shortage or lack of "rain". I was in my home town in Isfahan, which is a beautiful city in Iran, and a turist attract of the country. However, the big river of the city was dry this summer, because of the lack of rain. It resulted for 300,000 of the farmers in the eastern part of the city to lose their job!

We see also on the news that people in African horn are starving to death. These are not the only regions that suffer from the too "good" weather (sunny and no rain). North of Africa, Middle East, Spain, Iran, Pakistan, India, USA, Mexico, Australia, etc. (that are located around 30 degree in latitude) are partly or totally suffered from the dryness. These climate changes are partly affected by global warming and increasing the level of greenhouse gases such as CO2. The capacity of our earth is not enough to absorb our emissions. So, we should continue suffering from these disasters!

(An old bridge in Isfahan over a river that was once full of water)

Should I run my car on ethanol?

2011-06-24T10:58:00.003+02:00

In 1998, when I attended to a conference in Wisconsin, USA, there was a big dispute between those who love ethanol and those who hate ethanol. Each of them had their own reason to defend or attack fuel ethanol. At that time, oil industry was on one side, and farmers on the other side. This debate is still going on, in which one is for ethanol such as this one (sorry in Swedish) or against ethanol , such as this one.

Today, we see ethanol production in the world has passed more than 70,000,000,000, which is about 5 times more than its lever in 1998. It is a big business for many people in the world. However, we are still running on the first generation of ethanol, and we have no commercial second generation yet. The fact is that we have no single substitute for oil, and I believe we will have several different alternatives in the fuel market in the future. Now, there are many people believe in e.g. electrical vehicles. It is a good alternative for the cities and reducing CO2 emissions. However, are we allowed to destroy the amazon forests in order to access the lithium in that area for the batteries in electrical cars? It seems this debate will continue as long as we need energy (i.e. for ever).....

Resource Recovery

2011-06-21T05:52:00.004+02:00

I read recently in the news that production of bioplastics will increase from 700,000 tons in 2010 to 900,000 tons this year and 1,700,000 tons in 2015. Europe in the biggest market of the bioplastics, where also the research and development is dominant. We at resource recovery at University of Borås are also working on this direction. Our vision on increasing the value of wastes in form of different products is presented in the following picture, while we have now intensive research on some fo these directions!

Waste Recovery in Vietnam?

2011-06-17T16:41:00.004+02:00

I together with my colleague from the city council in Borås, Olle Engström had an intensive days this week in Vietnam. Together with the Swedish ambassador and his collegues in embassy, and the representative from ICLD, Swedish CENTEC in Vietnam and Sustainable Business Hub, we started our trip from Hanoi and visited Da Nang, Hoi An, Quy Nhon, Ho Chi Minh City and Vung Tau from north to south of the country in 6 days. These cities have 120,000 to 9 million inhabitants, and all of them were interested to initiate collaboration with us in "Waste Recovery" in order to solve their huge problems with the wastes. We had good discussions with the local goverments, municipalites, universities and companies. The Swedish embassy did their best and the workshops were very well planned although very intensive, and resulted into some concrete discussions. Let's hope we can have enough capacity to handle all these new contacts and friends!

(The beautifull view of the beach in Quy Nhon from Seagull hotel)

1,300,000,000 tons/year food waste!

2011-06-09T22:00:00.004+02:00

We see nowadays in the news that cucumbers are thrown away because of the this mysterious EHEC desease in Germany. It makes a bad feeling when we see such pictures. However, without being ashamed, we in Europe and North America throw away between 95 and 115 kg/year food each person. The corresponding number in Southeast Asia is 6-11 kg per person.

According to a recent report from FAO, developed country and developing countries throw away 670 and 630 million tons per year, respectively, which is a total of 1.3 billion tons each year.

The full FAO report about "Global food losses and food wastes" is available here!

Interested in MSc or PhD education?

2011-06-02T16:50:00.004+02:00

Yesterday was the graduating ceremony of our BSc students at the School of Engineering. There is generally a good job market for the engineers now. However, som of them might be interested to continue their education toward MSc or even PhD afterward.
I got a tips from Matt O'Brien about his blog on "Top 50 Must-Read Blogs Before Attending Grad School". It is a good collection for those of the students who are going to apply further education toward MSc or PhD. You may find some interesting points:
http://www.onlinemasters.org/top-50-must-read-blogs-before-attending-grad-school

This is also another intersting collection posted by Brandi Poss:
http://bestonlineuniversities.com/2011/50-awesome-weblogs-every-college-freshman-should-read/

In addition, education in our area on resource recovery has its own website:
http://resourcerecovery.se/

I wish good luck for all of the applicant, who are going to continue their educations!

Recycle and perhaps Reduce and Reuse of waste?

2011-05-30T17:07:00.005+02:00

The terms 3 R or "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle" is known globally, and a lot of efforts are done to improve waste management in the world. There have been some successes in different countries about the second and third "R", i.e. reuse and recycling of the wastes. However, I am not sure how many countries have succeeded to reduce their wastes, while the economy is growing!

In Sweden, we had continuous growth of the households waste production for at least 20 years. However, this trend is broken since 2008, and the municipal waste production is reducing. The organization Swedish Waste Management (Avfall Sverige) has recently published the data for the total municipal wastes 2010, and their treatment methods, which shows a clear decrease compared to 2009 and 2008.

Nuclear or solar energy in Japan?

2011-05-28T09:07:00.003+02:00

The recent nuclear disaster in Japan forced many countries to rethink about their energy policy. Japan is of course expected to be heavily affected by the Fukushima. However, it is interesting to follow how the country reacts. While many countries in the last decades and energy crises invested on different sources of energy, we heard that Japan had planned to take half of its energy from nuclear energy in 2030. While considering nuclear as a non-renewable source of energy, it was an interesting policy!

Now, Japan has changed their policy and wants to have solar energy for 10 million households in 2020. Let's see if this goal is too ambitious or not!

Better Life Index and hapiness?

2011-05-27T08:51:00.004+02:00

Having a better life is a general goal of everybody. But, what is better life?
There is a better life index which include several factors as housing, income, jobs, community, educations, environment, governance, health, life satisfaction, safelty and work-life balance. It compares 34 OECD countries here, but I think they forgot to add happiness which is a major factor. Sweden has a good position in this index!

A PhD thesis on textiles wastes to ethanol and biogas

2011-05-13T22:23:00.007+02:00

Textile and cloths in the current human society is a matter of fashion and beauty as well as its function to cover our body. We heard recetly debates from e.g. the former speaker of Swedish Environmental party on buying less cloths in order to save environment, but at the same time, we heard from KappAhl that was proud to sell more and more cloths in Sweden. The global annual fiber consumption is now more than 70,000,000 tons, including about 40% cellulose (cotton and viscose). Soon or late it is ended in waste stations.

Our PhD candidate Azam Jeihanipour has worked now about 4 years on these wastes and developed processes for conversion of textile wastes to ethanol and biogas. She will defend her thesis in two weeks on 27 May 2011. I wish her success during the defense!

Her thesis can be found here, and her published articles the thesis:

1- Ethanol production from cottonbasedwaste textiles”, Bioresource Technology (2009), 100 (2), 1007-1010

2- Enhancement of ethanol and biogas production from high-crystalline cellulose by different modes of NMMO pretreatment”, Biotechnology and Bioengineering (2010), 105 (3), 469-476.

3- A novel process for ethanol or biogas production from cellulose inblended fibers in waste textiles”, Waste Management (2010), 30 (12), 2504-2509.

4- Enhancement of solubilization rate of cellulose in anaerobic digestion and its drawbacks”, ProcessBiochemistry, in press

Journal publications by MSc students!

2011-05-11T09:03:00.003+02:00

There are always many talented and hard-working students. We have had several MSc students who worked well and pubished their work in scientific conferences or international scientific journals. I jused looked back in our journal publications and found many published papers, in which MSc students had great contributions. Many of those students are now Doctor or PhD students somewhere. Here is the list of these publications in which the name of those MSc students are underlined (there are also several manuscripts in publications process that are not in this list):

Journal articles (peer reviewed):

1. Modig, T., Lidén, G., and Taherzadeh, M.J. (2002): Inhibition effects of furfural on alcohol dehydrogenase, aldehyde dehydrogenase and pyruvate dehydrogenase. Biochemical J., 363(3): 769-776

2. Taherzadeh, M.J., Fox, M., Hjorth, H., Edebo, L., (2003). Cultivation of Rhizopus oryzae in synthetic medium and paper pulp sulfite liquor to produce mycelium biomass, ethanol and lactic acid. Bioresource Technol., 88(3): 167-177

3. Sues A., Millati R., Edebo L., Taherzadeh M.J. (2005): Ethanol Production from Hexoses, Pentoses, and Dilute-acid Hydrolyzates by Mucor indicus, FEMS Yeast Res., 5(6-7): 669-676

4. Arabi, R., Bemanian, S., Taherzadeh, M.J. (2007): Rapid Biodegradation of Methyl tert–Butyl Ether (MTBE) by Pure Bacterial cultures, Iran. J. Chem. Chem. Eng., 26(1): 1-7

5. Jeihanipour A., Karimi K., Taherzadeh M.J. (2007): Antimicrobial properties of fungal chitosan, Res J Biol Sci, 2(3): 239-243

6. Ebrahimi, F., Khanahmadi, M., Roodpeyma, Sh., Taherzadeh, M.J. (2008): Ethanol production from bread residues, Biomass Bioenergy, 32: 333-337

7. Sharifia, M., Karimi K., Taherzadeh M.J. (2008): Production of ethanol by filamentous and yeast-like forms of Mucor indicus from fructose, glucose, sucrose, and molasses, J. Ind. Microb. Biotechnol., 35(11): 1253-1259

8. Dehkhoda, A., Brandberg, T, Taherzadeh, M.J. (2009): Comparison of vacuum and high pressure evaporated wood hydrolyzate for ethanol production by repeated fed-batch using flocculating Saccharomyces cerevisiae, BioResources, 4(1): 309-320

9. Abedinifar, S., Karimi, K., Khanahmadi, M., Taherzadeh, M.J. (2009): Ethanol production by Mucor indicus and Rhizopus oryzae from rice straw by separate hydrolysis and fermentation, Biomass Bioenergy, 33(5): 828-833

10. Shafiei, M., Karimi, K., Taherzadeh, M.J. (2010): Pretreatment of spruce and oak by N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO) for efficient conversion of their cellulose to ethanol, Bioresource Technol, 101(13): 4914-4918

11. Majdejabbari, S., Barghi, H., Taherzadeh. M.J. (2010): Synthesis and characterization of biosuperabsorbent based on ovalbumin protein, J. Macromol. Sci. Part A: Pure Appl. Chem., 47(7): 708-715

12. Mirahmadi, K, Kabir M.M., Jeihanipour, A., Karimi, K., Taherzadeh, M.J. (2010): Alkaline pretreatment of spruce and birch to improve bioethanol and biogas production, BioResources, 5(2): 928-938

13. Lohrasbi, M., Pourbafrani, M., Niklasson C., Taherzadeh M.J. (2010): Process design and economic analysis of a citrus waste biorefinery with biofuels and limonene as products, Bioresource Technol, 101(19): 7382-7388

14. López, Y., García, A., Karimi, K., Taherzadeh, M. J., and Martín, C. (2010): Chemical characterisation and dilute-acid hydrolysis of rice hulls from an artisan mill, BioResources 5(4), 2268-2277.

15. Bidgoli, H., Zamani, A.; Taherzadeh, M.J. (2010): Effect of carboxymethylation conditions on water binding capacity of chitosan-based superabsorbents, Carbohydrate Res., 345: 2683-2689

16. Hosseinpour, H., Karimi, K., Zilouei, H., Taherzadeh, M.J. (2010): Simultaneous pretreatment of lignocellulose and hydrolysis of starch in mixtures to sugars, BioResources, 5(4): 2457-2469

17. Shafiei, M., Karimi, K., Taherzadeh, M.J. (2010): Palm Date Fibers: Analysis and Enzymatic Hydrolysis, Int. J. Mol. Sci. 11(11), 4285-4296

18. Soudham, P.R.; Rodríguez D., Rocha G.J.M.; Taherzadeh M.J.; Martín C. (2011): Acetosolv delignification of marabou (Dichrostachys cinerea) wood with and without acid prehydrolysis, Forestry Studies in China, 13(1): 64-70

19. Akbari, H., Karimi, K., Lundin, M., Taherzadeh, M. J. (2011): Optimization of baker's yeast drying in industrial continuous fluidized-bed dryer, Food and Bioproducts Processing, in press

20. Millati, R., Wikandari, R., Trihandayani, E.T., Cahyanto, M.N., Taherzadeh M.J., and Niklasson, C. (2011): Ethanol from Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch via Dilute-Acid Hydrolysis and Fermentation by Mucor indicus and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Agricultural J., 6(2): 54-59

21. Dehnavi, G.Z., Laucerica, J.L., Rodríguez, D., Beatón, M., Taherzadeh, M.J., Martin, C. (2011): Fractionation of the main components of barley spent grains from a microbrewery, Cellulose Chem. Technol, in press

22. Abtahi, Z., Millati, R., Niklasson, C., Taherzadeh, M.J. (2011): Ethanol production by Mucor indicus at high glucose and ethanol concentrations, Minerva Biotechnologica, in press

23. Jafari, V., Labafzadeh, S.R., Jeihanipour, A., Karimi, K., Taherzadeh, M.J. (2011): Construction and demolition lignocellulosic wastes to bioethanol, Renewable Energy, in press

Biomass is not so green?

2011-05-01T10:05:00.003+02:00

In Sweden in general, and of course in Borås, we are producing energy (heat and electricity) by burning biomass for many years. There is almost no debates that this energy-creating process is CO2 neutral and considered as green process. However, there is a debate in the USA that it is not so green process. When we read the details, the debates is about air pollution, and says that biomass create more pollution than coal and natural gas. These types of discussions are misleading. It is matter of technology used. Yes, the cheap technologies with no cleaning of the gas create a lot of pollutions, while the advanced technologies used in Sweden for burning of biomass or wastes, are far ahead of these debates.

(Simpson Tacoma Kraft, the photo is from The Seattle Times)

A new book on biofuels

2011-04-29T14:19:00.003+02:00

Biofuel is now a hot topic. There are different bifuels in the global market, in which ethanol has a the largest share, while biogas and biodiesel are also important actors. There are several books on biofuels so far. There is a new one coming out in July this year entitled "Biofuels: Alternative Feedstocks and conversion processes". It deals with ethanol, biodiesel and biohydrogen and seems to cover interesting subjects.

Intensive April for International collaborations on waste

2011-04-16T11:47:00.004+02:00

April 2011 is an intensive month for international collaborations on waste management and resource recovery:
1- A trip of waste recovery group to Brazil (Sao Paulo, San Bernando do Campus, Natal and Guamare),
2- My trip to Australia (Melbourne, Geelong) for the Big Green Conference, concerning textile industries and thier wastes,
3- Receiveing a delegation from Brazil (the municipality and different actors in Fortaleza)
4- Receiveing a delegation from Indonesia (Municipality of Palu City and Tadulako University in Solawesi),
5- Receiving the Swedish ambassadors in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia
6- Planning for the visit of the Swedish King and queen in September regarding waste recovery,

These activities are for just in April, while the entire year of 2011 seems to be very intensive for the sake of a better global environment and more renewable energies in the world!

(Two pictures of the beautiful and ugly sides of Guamare in Brazil)

Collecting system for textile wastes

2011-04-04T19:52:00.004+02:00

In Sweden, we have a deposit system (pant) for PET and aluminium, and dedicated collecting system for recycling materials such as newspapers, glasses, metals etc. However, there is no such system for cloths and textiles, except the collecting system of the charity organizations for the reusing of the cloths. In Sweden, everybody in average leave 3 kg textiles to the charity organization and 8 kg textile wastes goes to the waste stations. Read the report about it here. In 2009, we opened a discussion on developing a deposit system for collecting cloths separately and not mix it with the waste materials. There have been so far a lot of discussions on such system in Sweden. Today, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter published the results of a survey in Sweden, in which 70% of Swedes are in favor of having a deposit or particular collecting system for the cloths. You can read it here (in Swedish). Let's hope we don't see such this picture in the world in the future!

(The textile wastes in a landfill around Damascus, Syria)

Resíduos Sólidos Urbanos

2011-04-03T19:48:00.003+02:00

This week, we had a conference about socioenvironmental aspects of municipal solid wastes. The conference was hosted by Sao Paulo University, in collaboration with some Brazilian actors and our Waste Recovery. There were several hundreds participants from companies, universities, municipalites and even scavengers. In Brazil, in general, they talk about phasing out the open landfills, but the discussion and actions usually stops as controlled landfill and not further. However, it seems our contribution in Brazil is getting more and more interest to improve their environment. Brazil is a very big country with 190 million inhabitant and green development is on their agenda, such as this car!

(A green car, designed by architectures at Sao Paulo University)

Waste incineration, but no energy in Japan!

2011-03-25T16:06:00.005+01:00

Japan is now on the top of the news because of its Fukushima nuclear power plant and its problems after the earthquake. We have started our discussion and collaboration with Japan about waste recovery long before this disaster. Japan is a developed country. But, it is amazing that they do not use their waste as resource, as we do in Sweden. Biogas is not on their agenda, while they just burn the waste without any usage. Let's hope our collaboration now with Japan can result in changing this view and they start extracting energy from their waste!

Swedish king and queen for waste recovery

2011-03-21T17:17:00.003+01:00

Sweden has a king (Carl XVI Gustaf), who left the power to the parlament in 1973. But, he remains as an important symbol of the country and is a respected man in the world. His wife, the queen Silvia is also a very respected woman with a huge contribution to the humanity. Their majesties showed interest in our international environmental work (waste recovery) and will visit us in Borås in Sep. 2011. As I heard, it is the first time this pair visit Borås together. Let's hope this great news give us more energy for further international work!

Use snow to chill the summer!

2011-03-19T09:08:00.003+01:00

In a major part of the world, we have four seasons, which means we need heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. In the old time, people used to save deep snow and ice in shadow and use it for the summer time. However, this old tradition is gone. We have chill and perhaps piles of snow in the winter and hot climate in the summer. If we can manage save this huge amount of energy for 6 months, it can be the source of our heating and cooling throughout the year!

(Remaining of snow in Borås in the middle of March. In this place snow is piled to a height up to about 10 meter during the winter, and smells down during the spring without any use)

Swedish contribution to the global reduction of CO2 emissions

2011-03-06T17:49:00.009+01:00

Carbon emission credit is a means to regulate the global emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. At the moment, there are two programs named CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) and JI (Joint Implementation), in which the developed countries help more developing countries in reducing their emissions. There are today a total of about 2500 CDM projects, in which China and India absorbed about 2/3 of all the projects. A latest report by the Swedish Energy Agency, show that Sweden is financing 40 projects (3 in Brazil, 5 in India, 19 in China, one in Malaysia, one in Thailand, 2 in Vietnam, one in Benin, and 2 in Mauritius, 2 in Rwanda, 2 in Tanzania, one in Estonia and one in Romania), which cost about 300 million SEK per year. It is equal about 85 SEK/ton CO2. However, this price is much less than the tax of CO2 in Sweden (1050 SEK/ton CO2). Sweden has a goal to reduce the total CO2 in 2020 to a level of 60% of the total reduction in 1990, i.e. 31 million tons CO2 per year. You can read the report for more information (although it is in Swedish).

The geographical distribution of CDM projects in the world. Ref: www.unfccc.int

Waste refinery in poor countries

2011-02-27T14:32:00.004+01:00

Dumping the wastes is a global facts, and we can see that all around the world. However, there are some businesses around these dumping stations. There are scanvengers whose business is to find some valuable materials and collect and sell them. In addition, there are animals such as cows that find their daily meals among the wastes. It means Cows are our current "wastes refineries" in the world, that eat our wastes and then we eat their beef!!

(A wondering tiny cow that looked at me when I got her photo)

Inauguration of fruit wastes to electricity plant

2011-02-12T22:56:00.008+01:00

On the last Thursday (10 Feb. 2011), we had a great day in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In this day, a biogas plant located in a fruit market had kick-off. In this plant, the wastes of the fruit, which is about 4 tons/day is fed the the two digesters (each one 100 m3) and the produced biogas is convetered to electricity (about 500 KWh/day). The electricity is used for the market and also the residents aroud it. It is the first concrete result of our international work "waste recovery" in which our university, polititions, Borås Energy and Environment and SP are working together with the Indonesian partners, Gadjah Mada University, Sleman Municipality and Bionat company. It is a concrete example of "waste biorefinery". Read more about it at wasterecovery.se (in English) and hb.se (in Swedish)!

(The fruit wastes and the final preparations by the Swedish and Indonesian companies before starting of the micro-generators)

Biogas: A threat or rescuer of the global environment?

2011-02-08T17:54:00.002+01:00

Biogas is in principle a mixgure of methane and carbon dioxide. Nature is producing biogas since billions years ago. but today:

Scenario 1:
Biogas is a threat to the global environment. It is produced by landfills, rice fields, ponds, cattles etc., and has a great contribution to the global warming. One ton of methane has similar effect as 21 tons of CO2 on the global warming. So, biogas is obviously a threat!

Scenario 2:
Biogas can be produced in a very small reactors, e.g. 0.1 liters, until very large reactors such as 10,000 m3. It can be produced by the kitchen waste of a household or a big plant from e.g. organic wastes of a city. The methane is just the "natural gas" and can be easily separated from other gases by a simple water scrubbing. The methane can be used for heating, cooking, lightning, electricity production, or as car fuel, as it is already used in many countries in the world. We have today a network for tranportation of methane, knowledge to produce it and the technology to use it to run our cars or produce electricity. It can be produced all around the world in any sizes, and meet our demand of energy. So, the biogas is the rescuer of our environment!

The human society should decide about scenarion 1 or 2?

Food crisis and our duty

2011-01-25T20:13:00.004+01:00

For a couple of years ago, the price of corn was increased from its average price of about 100 USD to around 300 USD. It was in a parity of the oil price that made a record of more than 130 USD at the same time. These two prices are representative of an imbalance in food and energy supply and demands, which was partly dumped because of the global economical crisis. However, the problem is still out there. We see now the demonstration in e.g. Tunisia which was partly because of high price of food. We should accept that our resources is not enough to support food and energy of the current required global welfare. It is the duty of the polititions, scientists and the decision-makers in industry and agriculture to search for new sources of food as is done for energy!

(Price development of crude oil vs. corn since 2000)

Syria toward 10% renewables?

2011-01-18T11:29:00.003+01:00

Syria is relatively small, but one of the oldest countries in the world. The places in the old damascus show a history of several thousands years. The city has now about 5 million inhabitants, which is about 1/4 of the entire country. The country has not so much renewable energy at the moment, but they are planning to reach 10% by solar, wind, bioenergy and hydraulic energies. One of the resources that they own, without noticing, is their wastes. Just the city of Damascus produces 2,500 tons/day municipal wastes, by which 250 tons are composted and the left are landfilled. In our recent trip to Damascus, we tried to make the initial connections toward waste recovery and its conversion to energies. Let's hope for their success with our help!

(The landfill of Damascus with 35,000 ha in size and 20 m height of the wastes)

You, me, facebook and environment

2011-01-04T20:18:00.005+01:00

We have recently heard that facebook passed google as the most visited website. There are now many people, particularly younger generation on facebook or similar social media. These media, therefore, become particularly important in spreading information on our environment and resource recovery. I have recently visited a Swedish facebook on waste management and resource recovery. My colleage, Hans Björk is also active on Twitter on this subject. Let's hope to see more active bloggers and websites regarded our environment!

(My photo at the headquarters of facebook in Palo Alto nearby San Francisco)

Biomass recalcitrance

2010-12-21T11:41:00.003+01:00

It is now 3 decades that we have global intensive research on converting lignocelluloses to different value-added products such as ethanol and butanol. There are now hundreds of thousands of publications and patents on these subjects, but still, we don't have any large scale commercial plant. One of the major problems of this subject is the recalcitrance and complexity of the biomass, which make it unaccessible to enzymes and microorganisms. The nature designed this material to stay long, but we want to degrade it quickly. We are tackling with this problem in 15 years now, and still, a long way to go! We have recently had "Biomass Recalcitrance" as a PhD course, and know that the understanding of this complexity need much more research!

(Our current understanding of the cell wall structure. The pictures were adopted from a very good book on this subject)