I truly appreciate the opportunity to give the award lecture at the Spencer Award symposium. For a long time, I have been using agro-based raw materials to develop new products, processes, and applications. In this talk, I shall provide an overview of my work in this area. For convenience, this can be grouped in four categories: 1) Novel technologies for agro-based materials. A range of natural raw materials have been studied, using different strategies to produce specific products. For example, polysaccharides, proteins, and triglycerides have been modified or formulated into blends and composites. Agricultural byproducts (like wheat straw, barley straw, rice hull, cotton gin trash, and cottonseed hull) have been converted to value-added materials. 2) Novel methodologies for biocatalysis. Quite a few enzyme-catalyzed reactions have been devised. For example, new derivatives of cellulose and guar gum have been made, which complement (and extend) the existing cellulosic and guar derivatives. 3) Green processing and conversion. These include the use of microwave to decrease reaction time, Lewis acids that catalyze the acylation of cellulose, biocatalysts to clean up hazardous industrial byproducts, and natural deep eutectic solvents for extractions. 4) Novel analytical methodologies for the NMR analyses of agro-related materials, e.g., new methods for spectral prediction, statistical models to elucidate complex spectra, computer modeling, and compositional heterogeneity in polysaccharides. For illustration, selected projects will be highlighted during this presentation. I am most thankful to all my collaborators over the years for their camaraderie and to my employers for their support.

Agro-based raw materials as green product platforms

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ACS Fall 2022

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