Roland Lee

Perspectives on marine zooplankton lipids

We developed new perspectives to identify important questions and to propose approaches for future research on marine food web lipids. They were related to (i) structure and function of lipids, (ii) lipid changes during critical life phases, (iii) trophic marker lipids, and (iv) potential impact of climate change. The first addresses the role of lipids in membranes, storage lipids, and buoyancy with the following key question: How are the properties of membranes and deposits affected by the various types of lipids? The second deals with the importance of various types of lipids during reproduction, development, and resting phases and addresses the role of the different storage lipids during growth and dormancy. The third relates to trophic marker lipids, which are an important tool to follow lipid and energy transfer through the food web. The central question is how can fatty acids be used to identify and quantify food web relationships? With the fourth, hypotheses are presented on effects of global warmi...

UV-Vis as quantification tool for solubilized lignin following a single-shot steam process.

In this short communication, UV/Vis was used as an analytical tool for the quantification of lignin concentrations in aqueous mediums. A significant correlation was determined between absorbance and concentration of lignin in solution. For this study, lignin was produced from different types of biomasses (willow, aspen, softwood, canary grass and hemp) using steam processes. Quantification was performed at 212, 225, 237, 270, 280 and 287 nm. UV-Vis quantification of lignin was found suitable for different types of biomass making this a timesaving analytical system that could lead to uses as Process Analytical Tool (PAT) in biorefineries utilizing steam processes or comparable approaches.

Lignin extraction--reassessment of the severity factor with respect to hydroxide concentration.

Steam processes have often been associated with a severity factor, correlating the cooking temperature, time and catalyst used in the process. Although equations for treatments with and without acid catalyst have been suggested, there is so far no simple equation allowing a precise estimation of the amount of lignin extracted from lignocellulosic biomass. In this work, a new version of the severity factor equation is proposed. This has been shown to correlate effectively to the amount of lignin extracted from various types of lignocellulosic materials and different extraction methods. The resulting severity factor is robust with potential to be utilized both for acid and base-catalyzed extraction of lignin. Finally, the proposed correlation between the severity factor and extracted lignin under base conditions has been correlated with empirical data to validate the entire model and especially under mild condition where lesser information was available from open literature.

Structure of wood extract colloids and effect of CaCl2 on the molecular mobility

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) was used to study the colloidal structure of model wood extractive colloids composed of a resin acid (abietic acid), a fatty acid (oleic acid) and a triglyceride (triolein). Two nitroxides were chosen as EPR probes to gain a greater understanding of the different regions of the colloid in order to assess the current proposed models of the structure of the wood extractive colloid. A non-polar nitroxide probed non-polar regions of the colloid, such as triglycerides, while a surfactant-type nitroxide probed regions occupied by fatty acids. The effect of varying the amounts of each of the model colloid components on the structure of the colloid and its interaction with the probe was investigated. Results of the EPR study confirm the existence of a hydrophobic core. However, surface tension and EPR results suggest that the outer layer of the colloid is composed of mostly resin acids. It is proposed that a fatty acid layer exists between the resin acids and triglycerides and is sufficiently mobile to move between them. The addition of salt (CaCl2) was found to