Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has seemingly burst into public consciousness with sudden vigor. Previously relinquished to computer science journals, it erupted as the unrelenting topic of public media with most of the furor surrounding chatbots, like ChatGPT. Although many educators began worrying about the implications of AI in student learning and creative activity, this book will demonstrate that AI can be harnessed as a source of inspiration and meaningful instruction. With an emphas...

Moving beyond familiar myths about moonshiners, bootleggers, and hard-drinking writers, Southern Comforts explores how alcohol and drinking helped shape the literature and culture of the U.S. South.Edited by Conor Picken and Matthew Dischinger, this collection of seventeen thought-provoking essays proposes that discussions about drinking in southern culture often orbit around familiar figures and mythologies that obscure what alcohol consumption has meant over time. Comple...

There has always been interest in understanding what constitutes the good life and the basis for creating it. Much has been written about health and wellbeing at multiple scales, from the physical and psychological through to the societal and environmental. Wellbeing has been studied from the perspectives of psychology, medicine, economics, social science, ecology, and political science. However, the interconnections between these scales and perspectives have received far less attention, e...

Salen Metal Complexes as Catalysts for the Synthesis of Polycarbonates from Cyclic Ethers and Carbon Dioxide, by Donald J. Darensbourg.- Material Properties of Poly(Propylene Carbonates), by Gerrit. A. Luinstra and Endres Borchardt.- Poly(3-Hydroxybutyrate) from Carbon Monoxide, by Robert Reichardt and Bernhard Rieger. - Ecoflex® and Ecovio®: Biodegradable, Performance-Enabling Plastics, by K. O. Siegenthaler, A. Künkel, G. Skupin and M. Yamamoto.- Biodegradability of Poly(Vinyl Acetate) a...

This book provides in-depth information on basic and applied aspects of biofuels production from algae. It begins with an introduction to the topic, and follows with the basic scientific aspects of algal cultivation and its use for biofuels production, such as photo bioreactor engineering for microalgae production, open culture systems for biomass production and the economics of biomass production. It provides state-of-the-art information on synthetic biology approaches for algae suitable ...

Designed to provide a comprehensive, step-by-step approach to organic process research and development in the pharmaceutical, fine chemical, and agricultural chemical industries, this book describes the steps taken, following synthesis and evaluation, to bring key compounds to market in a cost-effective manner. It describes hands-on, step-by-step, approaches to solving process development problems, including route, reagent, and solvent selection; optimising catalytic reactions; chiral synt...

Materials from renewable resources are receiving increased attention, as leading industries and manufacturers attempt to replace declining petrochemical-based feedstocks with products derived from natural biomass, such as cereal straws. Cereal straws are expected to play an important role in the shift toward a sustainable economy, and a basic knowledge of the composition and structure of cereal straw is the key to using it wisely. Cereal Straw as a Resource for Sustainable Biomaterials and...

The application of ionic liquids to biomass for producing biofuels and chemicals will be one of the hot research areas during the next decade due to the fascinating properties of these versatile group of solvents that allow them to dissolve lignocellulosic materials. The present text provides up-to-date fundamentals, state-of-the-art reviews, current assessments and prospects in this area, including aspects of pretreatment, fermentation, biomass dissolution, cellulose transformation, react...

The world is facing a drinking water crisis. Besides continuous population growth, uneven distribution of water resources and periodic droughts have forced scientists to search for new and effective water treatment, remediation and recycling technologies. Therefore, there is a great need for the development of suitable, inexpensive and rapid wastewater treatment and reuse or conservation methods. This title discusses different types of wastewater treatment, remediation and recycling techni...

Lignin in Polymer Composites presents the latest information on lignin, a natural polymer derived from renewable resources that has great potential as a reinforcement material in composites because it is non-toxic, inexpensive, available in large amounts, and is starting to be deployed in various materials applications due to its advantages over more traditional oil-based materials. This book reviews the state-of-the-art on the topic and their applications to composites, including thermopl...

This book includes 19 chapters contributed by the world's leading experts on pretreatment methods for biomass. It extensively covers the different types of biomass (e.g. molasses, sugar beet pulp, cheese whey, sugarcane residues, palm waste, vegetable oil, straws, stalks and wood), various pretreatment approaches (e.g. physical, thermal, chemical, physicochemical and biological) and methods that show the subsequent production of biofuels and chemicals such as sugars, ethanol, extracellular...

This bookreviews the recent advances in hydrothermal conversion of biomass into chemicals and fuels, and consists of 15 chapters. It introduces the properties of high-temperature water, the merits of hydrothermal conversion of biomass, and some novel hydrothermal conversion processes, mainly including hydrothermal production of value-added products, hydrothermal gasification, hydrothermal liquefaction and hydrothermal carbonization. This book introduces a new concept for counteracting the ...