Nuclear or solar energy in Japan?

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?

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

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!

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?

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

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

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

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

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!

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!