The work described in this dissertation focused on chemistry related to the use of aqueous sodium hydroxide as a treatment in the processing of wheat straw. A major emphasis was the comprehensive evaluation of straw component partitioning due to sodium hydroxide (NaOH) processing. This was evaluated over a range of...
There is considerable interest in developing environmentally friendly processes for the economical conversion of biomass plant material to biofuels, bioproducts and biomaterials. One approach to such a conversion process is to make use of enzymes for the conversion of plant polysaccharides to simple sugars; the simple sugars could then be...
A low, but significant, fraction of the carbohydrate portion of herbaceous biomass may be composed of fructose/fructosyl-containing components (“fructose equivalents”); such carbohydrates include sucrose, fructo-oligosaccharides, and fructans. Standard methods used for the quantification of structural-carbohydrate-derived neutral monosaccharide-equivalents in biomass are not particularly well suited for the quantification of fructose equivalents...
The objectives of this project were to investigate the chemical composition of five varieties of wine grape pomace (WGP) skins obtained in the Pacific Northwest of the United States with the emphasis on dietary fiber (DF) and polyphenolic compounds, and further to evaluate the feasibility of developing WGP extract based...