This study examined the physicochemical and mechanical properties of edible composite films made of cellulose nanofiber (CNF) and shellac (Sh). All films were conditioned at 25℃ and 53% relative humidity (RH) for at least 48 h before analyses. Increasing the Sh ratio from 0% to 100% resulted in an increase in film thickness from 57.8 μm to 71.1 μm, while opacity decreased significantly from 22.3 mm⁻¹ to 3.7 mm⁻¹. With the increase in the Sh ratio, the moisture content, water solubility, and swelling of the film increased from 9.7% to 35.1%, 4.9% to 100%, and 3.0% to 10.5%, respectively. The CNF film (0% Sh) exhibited a lower water contact angle than the films with 80% and 100% Sh, but it was more water-resistant. As the Sh ratio increased, the tensile strength, yield stress, Young’s modulus, and work of break of the films decreased significantly from 17.9 MPa to 0.3 MPa, 1.00 MPa to 0.38 MPa, 220.7 MPa to 0.9 MPa, and 0.67 MJ/m3 to 0.13 MJ/m3, respectively. Conversely, the elongation at break increased dramatically from 10% to 253%. This study demonstrated that the thickness, opacity, moisture-related properties, and mechanical properties of CNF-Sh composite films could be tailored by varying the biopolymer ratio.

Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) produced using municipal solid waste was pyrolyzed to produce RDF char. For the first time, the RDF char was used to remove aqueous copper, a representative heavy metal water pollutant. Activation of the RDF char using steam and KOH treatments was performed to change the specific surface area, pore volume, and the metal cation quantity of the char. N2 sorption, Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometer (ICP-AES), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were used to characterize the char. The optimum pH for copper removal was shown to be 5.5, and the steam-treated char displayed the best copper removal capability. Ion exchange between copper ions and alkali/alkaline metal cations was the most important mechanism of copper removal by RDF char, followed by adsorption on functional groups existing on the char surface. The copper adsorption behavior was represented well by a pseudo-second-order kinetics model and the Langmuir isotherm. The maximum copper removal capacity was determined to be 38.17 mg/g, which is larger than those of other low-cost char adsorbents reported previously.

Wild rice might have previously unidentified genes important for disease resistance and stress tolerance in response to biotic and abiotic stresses. A set of subtractive library was constructed both from leaves of wild rice plants, Oryza grandiglumis (CCDD, 2n=48), treated with fungal elicitor and from wounded leaves. A partial fragment that was homologous to PR10 genes from other plant species was identified via suppression subtractive hybridization and cDNA macroarray. The obtained full-length cDNA sequence (OgPR10) contains an open reading frame of 480 bp nucleotide, encoding 160 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 16.944 kDa and an isoelectric point (pI) of 4.91. The multiple alignment analyses showed the higher sequence homology of OgPR10 with PR10 genes identified in rice plants at amino acid level. The OgPR10 mRNA was not expressed by treatment with wounding, jasmonic acid, and salicylic acid, but markedly expressed in leaves treated with protein phosphatase inhibitors cantharidin and endothall, and yeast extract. In addition, the expression of OgPR10 mRNA was induced within 72 h after treatment with probenazole, one of well-known chemical elicitors, and reached the highest level at 144 h. Heterologous expression of OgPR10 caused growth inhibition and seedling lethality in E. coli and Arabidopsis, respectively. Chemically induced OgPR10 expression with glucocorticoid-mediated transcriptional induction system further reconfirmed its lethality on Arabidopsis seedling. In addition, OgPR10-expressing rice plants, Oryzae sativar were resistant against the infection of rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe grisea. These results indicate that OgPR10 is involved in probenazole- and microbe associated molecular patterns-mediated disease resistance responses in plants and is a potential gene for developing disease resistance crop plants.