A blog from University of Borås

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Journal publications by MSc students!

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


Sunday, May 1, 2011

Biomass is not so green?

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)

Friday, April 29, 2011

A new book on biofuels

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.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Intensive April for International collaborations on waste

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)

Monday, April 4, 2011

Collecting system for textile wastes

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)

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Resíduos Sólidos Urbanos

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)

Friday, March 25, 2011

Waste incineration, but no energy in Japan!

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!

Monday, March 21, 2011

Swedish king and queen for waste recovery

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!

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Use snow to chill the summer!

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)

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Swedish contribution to the global reduction of CO2 emissions

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