An international team of researchers from Taiwan, Australia, India and Bangladesh has successfully developed a method of converting agricultural biomass into commercially valuable chemicals for food and pharmaceutical companies, the Financial Express reported on Monday.
The new method is “significantly cheaper and more environmentally friendly and efficient” than existing conversion methods, because the catalyst materials used are recyclable and the process produces a high yield of valuable chemicals, the Indian English-language newspaper said.
Specifically, the researchers used “raw biomass, such as bagasse, rice husk, wheat straw, cotton stalk, corn cob and low-grade jute from different areas of India and Bangladesh, and converted it into high-value chemicals, such as xylose and arabinose, furfural and HMF [hydroxymethylfurfural],” Shahriar Hossain, a materials scientist at University of Wollongong’s Australian Institute for Innovative Materials, was quoted as saying.
The report quoted Wu Chia-wen (吳嘉文), a professor of chemical engineering at National Taiwan University who was also involved in the project, as saying that such chemicals have widespread uses in the food and pharmaceutical sectors.
“Xylose and arabinose ... can play an important role in the management of blood glucose and insulin levels related to sucrose intake” when used in food products, Wu said.
Furfural can be applied as “fungicides, pesticides, drugs and bioplastics, flavor enhancers,” the report said.
“This discovery will add significant economic value to the agricultural waste materials through industrialization of our technique in Bangladesh and other South Asian countries,” the researchers were quoted as saying.
Researchers from National Taiwan University, Australia’s University of Wollongong, Bangladesh’s Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University and Indian schools were involved in the project.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS