Idea Collection 2

The last time I wrote my FIRST Idea collection was on August 8, 2013! That is more than 2 months ago. Now, I have another stack of paper waiting for me to summarize and compile into a single blog post. The paper stack is not as big as it is shown below, of course. I am trying to avoid that from happening.

So, a number of biggish events have occurred since August 2013. In chronological order, they are:
1. my colleague, Asal Hashemi's MASc Thesis defence on July 9, 2013 on Encapsulation of wood pellets
This taught me about the importance of good photos. Her wood pellets were shown in a straight row. That looks great and the sizes of the wood pellets were compared visually as well.
2. Linoj joined my research group, Biomass and Bioenergy Research Group as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in July 2013. During a group meeting, he mentioned that as graduate students of a research group, we should build on the researches that was done in the group and expand your own research on them
3. a Lab Tour of AMPEL Surface Characterization Laboratory on August 14, 2013. This made me realized that I have a great facility for surface properties analysis just right across the street! The laboratory offers mu-Ranman, SEM-EDX, XPS, ToF-SIMS and other high precision surface analysis.
4. a Visit to Williams Lake Pinnaccle Pellet Plant (image below) on August 20, 2013. This trip was just, "WOW!" Totally an eye-opener! They has no self-heating issues at the plant because the turnover of raw materials and wood pellets are less than 1 week!

IDEAS

1. Oxidation of extractives produce higher energy potential chemical species. Adsorption of this higher energy chemical species might have increased the calorific value of my wood pellet over close storage.
2. In the case of high moisture content, microbial degradation of cellulose & hemicellulose (C&H) especially by brown fungi reduces C&H content, and results in an increase of lignin content
3. On the latest account in October 2013, the price of wood pellet in Europe (German in particular) is €260-€300 per tonne!
4. Methanol formation in Kraft pulp mill is through the demethylation of xylans (i.e. hemicellulose) and lignin by hydroxidie OH- ion through rapid alkaline hydrolysis reaction

COMMENTS

I found that I have so many things and important information that I have written down on pieces of paper. Now that I look back to them, I felt that it is hard to write them all down. There are just so many information. I think I will write another Idea Collection real soon on the technical/research ideas that I have written down.