Commentary:

Yukihiko MATSUMURA

Professor, Institute of Engineering, Hiroshima University

• Lecture:

"Production of functional lipids by marine microbe, thraustochytrid"

Tsunehiro AKI

Associate Professor,

Graduate School of Advanced Sciences of Matter

The marine microbe thraustochytrid (genus Aurantiochytrium) produces significant amount of functional and industrially useful lipids such as docosahexaenoic acid, astaxanthin, and squalene.

A line of previous studies on the thraustochytrid and plans and tasks for efficient lipid production using marine macro algae will be discussed.

"Temperature effect with catalyst on reaction characteristics of supercritical water gasification of glucose"

Hokuto TAKAI

M2 student,

Graduate School of Engineering

Supercritical water gasification (SCWG) is a promising technology for gasifying biomass with high moisture content.

In the SCWG process, biomass is easily decomposed but, concurrently, polymerization of the biomass derived chemicals can occur.

Polymerization reactions can cause problems in the SCWG process because they not only reduce the gasification efficiency, but also can plug the reactor.

Hydrothermal decomposition of glucose is conducted at 350, 400 and 450 oC in the presence of acid (HCl) or base (NaOH) catalysts.

The addition of H+ in hydrothermal gasification of glucose enhanced the formation of furfural and 5-HMF, which are ionic reactions.

On the other hand, the addition of OH- slightly promoted the gasification reaction, which is a radical reaction. This study considers the effects of temperature on these reactions.

"Enzymatic hydrolysis for cellulose in homogeneous phase"

Kornpat NAIYAPORN

M2 student,

Graduate School of Engineering

Cellulose hydrolysis pretreatment was conducted using a flow reactor so that cellulose could be dissolved in water. The produced oversaturated cellulose solution was further treated by the homogeneous enzymatic hydrolysis. Two enzymes were applied in series, cellobiosidase followed byβ-glucosidase. Glucose yield of 0.24 was obtained after enzymatic hydrolysis.