Part of the book: Environmental Biotechnology
Part of the book: Biotechnology
The synthesis of mesoporous silica materials was reviewed with a view to discuss the reaction mechanism and the various attempts made at enhancing the materials’ properties by utilizing varieties of templating agents and silica frameworks from pure synthetic chemicals. This chapter also reviewed studies in which either the template or the framework was synthesized from benign reagents obtained from renewable sources, to achieve enhanced material properties. The view was to encourage the development of mesoporous silica materials in which both the template and the silica framework are from biomass origin. This approach may promote the large‐scales synthesis of mesoporous silica for commercial purposes, which had previously been hampered by the toxic nature, cost of synthetic chemical reagents, and unsustainable synthetic routes.
Part of the book: Microporous and Mesoporous Materials
Coal fly ash has been recognised as suitable feedstock for zeolite synthesis, and with this discovery, there has been much literature produced over the years on various synthesis processes with a view to address the disposal problems associated with fly ash wastes. The different synthesis processes can be divided into a pre‐synthesis activation with an alkali solution and a hydrothermal synthesis of heating the resulting aluminosilicate gel. However, the challenge lies in up scaling the synthesis to allow production on a commercial scale. The most common pre‐synthesis involving high‐temperature fusion of fly ash with sodium hydroxide may not be feasible in an economic context, given that a large‐scale furnace that would be needed. In this review, the successes recorded in the application of acoustic cavitation by using ultrasonication technique were discussed as a possible alternative to the fusion process on one hand. On the other hand, jet‐loop reactor system provides hydrodynamic cavitation, which may be relatively scalable compared to ultrasonication and may offer an economic advantage, if systematically explored, over fusion process for large‐scale synthesis of zeolites. It is also recommended that agitation is critical during the crystallisation process and the suitability of an impeller type that offers a minimum shearing to be explored during the hydrothermal process with respect to quality and yield of the zeolite produced. The understanding gleaned from these recommendations may be useful in designing an appropriate scale‐up operation for zeolite synthesis from coal fly ash.
Part of the book: Zeolites
This chapter investigates the effect of some selected nitrogen sources (corn steep liquor—CSL, yeast extract, and beef extract) on the bioproduction of a selected flavor—acetoin (AC) from glucose—with a view to optimize its production. The results revealed that by using a cheap nitrogen source, corn steep liquor, the yield of acetoin is similar to those of the extracts of yeast and beef. Furthermore, it was shown that by using the Box-Behnken design, the optimum parameters such as glucose concentration, corn steep liquor, and inoculum size to maximize the concentration of acetoin produced are 78.40 g/L, 15% w/v, and 2.70% v/v, respectively. The validated concentration of acetoin produced in a triplicate analysis, 10.70 g/L, was 0.06% less than the predicted value. The results of this study may encourage the development of cost-effective nutritional use of corn steep liquor for bioproduction of acetoin on an industrial scale.
Part of the book: Renewable Resources and Biorefineries