Publications related to New proposal for production of bioactive compounds by supercritical technology integrated to a sugarcane biorefinery

Development of Sustainable Carbohydrate-Based Solvents by Acetal Functionalisation of Biomass

Organic solvents are ubiquitous in industrial and domestic applications from the production of pharmaceuticals to household consumer products. The negative impact of most traditional solvents, especially aprotic types, on the environment, health, and safet ...

EPFL2024

Design and Synthesis of Bio-based Amphiphiles from Lignocellulosic Biomass

Songlan Sun

In the pursuit of a carbon-neutral chemical industry, minimizing fossil feedstock consumption while integrating renewable carbon sources is imperative. Surfactants, inherently amphiphilic, pose challenges in separation and recovery processes. Given their e ...

EPFL2024

Origin of the Activity Trend in the Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Ethanol over VOx/CeO2

Oliver Kröcher, Rob Jeremiah G. Nuguid, Anna Zabilska, Olga Safonova

Supported vanadia (VOx) is a versatile catalyst for various redox processes where ceria-supported VOx have shown to be particularly active in the oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of alcohols. In this work, we clarify the origin of the volcano-shaped ethanol ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2023

A Sprayable Electrically Conductive Edible Coating for Piezoresistive Strain Sensing

Dario Floreano, Pietro Rossi, Bokeon Kwak

Edible electronics leverages the electronic properties of food-derived materials to deliver safer technologies that can be degraded (or digested) in the environment (or body) at the end-of-life. Sensors will be central to future smart edible robots, and ed ...

2024

Decision support for the design of integrated biorefineries

Julia Granacher

A shift from fossil-based energy and products to more sustainable alternatives is essential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and associated climate change impacts. Biomass represents a promising alternative for providing fuels and carbon-based products w ...

EPFL2023

Investigation of Biomass Hydrothermal Conversion Products by HRMS

Daniil Salionov

The dependency on fossil fuels and their impact on the environment is a matter of great concern for the future sustainability of modern society. The development of the "green" technologies which utilize renewable energy sources is now under investigation. ...

EPFL2023

Integrated production of urea and nitric acid in the pulp industry: techno-economic and environmental analysis of black liquor gasification-based processes

François Maréchal, Shivom Sharma, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos

The pursuit of alternative energy sources for the nitrogen fertilizers sector has recently earned renewed interest due to increasing concerns regarding the world dependence on non-renewable energy resources and also motivated by the more stringent environm ...

2022

Comparative techno-economic and energy analyses of integrated biorefinery processes of furfural and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural from biomass residue

François Maréchal

For efficient feedstock and energy utilization, integrated biorefinery processes are applied to furfural production from bagasse to convert furfural residue into 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF)-an important intermediate building block for the production of v ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2023

Methods for Calibrating the Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance: Frequency to Mass and Compensation for Viscous Load

Stefano Mischler, Anna Neus Igual Muñoz

The main output from an Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance is a frequency shift. This note describes how to separate the mass- and viscous load contributions to this shift by a calibration procedure. The mass calibration is made by electroplating ...

MDPI2023

Leveraging industrial biorefineries for the energy transition

François Maréchal, Julia Granacher

Biorefineries hold the potential to provide products and energy carriers at reduced environmental impact compared to their fossil-based counterparts. Thus, they can contribute to the decarbonization of sectors in which electrification of demands is challen ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2023

Tandem effect of Ag@C@Cu catalysts enhances ethanol selectivity for electrochemical CO2 reduction in flow reactors

Thi Ha My Pham, Andreas Züttel, Wen Luo, Jie Zhang, Mo Li, Youngdon Ko, Cedric David Koolen, Liping Zhong

CO-selective metals (e.g., Ag) on Cu catalysts improve the selec-tivity of multi-carbon (C2+) products in electrochemical CO2 reduc-tion. However, the origin of the improvement remains unclear due to the convolution of tandem and interface effects. Here, A ...

ELSEVIER2022

Model-based scale-up of a continuously operated consolidated bioprocess based on a microbial consortium for the production of ethanol

David Beat Dempfle

This work demonstrated that consolidated bioprocessing is a promising concept for conversion of lignocellulose to ethanol at industrial scale. CBP offers great cost saving potential, is feasible to be operated continuously and may be scaled up due to exten ...

EPFL2022

Active sites on copper-based catalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction selectively to C2+ products

Jie Zhang

Electrochemical CO2 reduction (eCO2RR) towards value-added chemicals, powered by renewable electricity, is a promising technology for storing the intermittent renewable energy in the form of chemical bonds. Among the various products of eCO2RR, multi-carbo ...

EPFL2022

Techno-economic assessment of bioethanol production from lignocellulose by consortium-based consolidated bioprocessing at industrial scale

Oliver Kröcher

Lignocellulose-based biofuels are of major importance to mitigate the impact of international traffic and transport on climate change while sustaining agricultural land for food supply. Highly integrated systems like consolidated bioprocessing (CBP), where ...

ELSEVIER2021

Developing structure-oriented models for enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass

Jessica Charlène Rohrbach

With the unsustainable use of fossil fuels increasing strains on human institutions and ecosystems, the development of a renewable energy alternative is of paramount importance. Second generation biorefineries, based on the production of fuels and chemical ...

EPFL2021

A study on synergies of combined pulp and fuel production

François Maréchal, Tuong-Van Nguyen, Erina Clare Mcdonald, Julia Granacher

To limit climate change by reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, a transition away from fossil fuels is required. Biofuels represent a promising low carbon alternative for sectors that are hard to electrify, such as aviation. The integration of bio ref ...

2021

Simulation and experimental validation of pulsating heat pipes

John Richard Thome, Jackson Braz Marcinichen, Filippo Cataldo, Philippe Aubin

The one-dimensional transient numerical code of JJ Cooling Innovation has been significantly improved to simulate the thermal/hydraulic performance of pulsating heat pipes (PHPs). Using a mechanistic approach, the liquid slug and vapor plug flows and their ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2021

Toward waste valorization by converting bioethanol production residues into nanoparticles and nanocomposite films

Muhammad Farooq, Xun Liao

A "waste-valorization" approach was developed to transform recalcitrant hydrolysis lignin (HL) from secondgeneration bioethanol production into multifunctional bio-based products. The hydrolysis lignin (HL) was extracted with aqueous acetone, yielding two ...

ELSEVIER2021

Exergy assessment and techno-economic optimization of bioethanol production routes

François Maréchal

Currently, electricity generation and second-generation ethanol production from lignocellulosic feedstocks represent technological alternatives in the bioenergy sector. Nevertheless, the introduction of new production processes denotes a real challenge due ...

2020

Aldehyde-Assisted Lignocellulose Fractionation Provides Unique Lignin Oligomers for the Design of Tunable Polyurethane Bioresins

Jeremy Luterbacher, Raymond Gérard Buser, Florent Emmanuel Héroguel, Jean Thierry C Behaghel de Bueren, Chloé Wegmann

Thanks to chemical stabilization, aldehyde-assisted fractionation (AAF) of lignocellulosic biomass has recently emerged as a powerful tool for the production of largely uncondensed lignin. Depolymerization of AAF lignin via ether deavage provides aromatic ...

American Chemical Society2020