The most essential issue facing the world today is the provision of energy and sustainable consumption of natural resources. Pretreatment is an essential step to produce biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass. In this study, ammonia fiber explosion (AFEX) combined with NaOH (A-NaOH) pretreatment effects on the characteristics of Pennisetum sinese (herbaceous), oak (hardwood), and camphor wood (softwood) were assessed using enzymatic efficiency analysis, thereby identifying the composition properties of subsequent bio-H2 production. The results show that the lignin removal (84.2%, 59.7%, and 36.7%, respectively) at 5%A-NaOH conditions and enzymatic efficiency (36.2%, 9.7%, and 6.5%, respectively) of Pennisetum sinese (P. sinese), oak, and camphor wood were significantly increased under 4% A-NaOH conditions. Further A-NaOH pretreatment significantly promoted dark fermentation bio-H2 production (152.3, 99.1, and 76.9 mL/g TS, respectively) and volatile acid production (4660.2, 3720.2, and 3496.2 mg/L, respectively) of P. sinese, oak, and camphor wood. These findings show that A-NaOH pretreatment is an effective means of utilization of lignocellulose resources.
In order to improve the degradation efficiency of lignocellulose while increasing the yield of mushrooms, white rot fungi treatment (Pleurotus ostreatus, Pleurotus eryngii, and Pleurotus geesteranus) combined with ammonia fiber expansion was proposed as a method for treating lignocellulose (Pennisetum sinese, salix chips, and pine chips) for mushroom cultivation. Compared with treatment using either ammonia fiber expansion or white rot fungus, the combined treatment significantly improved lignocellulose degradation rate by 10–20% and reduced the time required significantly. Among them, P. geesteranus was the most effective bacterium for the combined treatment of lignocellulose. Ammonia fiber expansion-treated lignocellulose contributed to mycelial growth and increased the activity of three lignin hydrolase enzymes (laccase, manganese peroxidase, and lignin peroxidase) and mushroom yield. The mushroom yield was increased by 44.6%. The combined treatment method proposed in our study improves lignocellulose resource utilization and is therefore useful in the treatment of agricultural solid organic waste.
Di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) is a toxic plasticizer and androgen antagonist. Its accumulation in water exceeds national drinking water standards and it must be continuously and effectively regulated. Currently, methods used to detect DEHP are still unsatisfactory because they usually have limited detection sensitivity and require complex operating procedures. A competition-induced fluorescence detection method was developed for the selective detection of DEHP in an aquatic environment. An aptamer with walking function was used as the recognition element for DEHP, and its quantification was induced by competition to change the fluorescence signal. The detection range was 0.01~100 µg/L, and the detection limit was 1.008 μg/L. This high-sensitivity DEHP detection capability and simplified process facilitates real-time fields and other monitoring tasks.