Xylaria nigripes is a rare medicinal mushroom in the Xylariaceae family, which has long been used in traditional medicine to aid in treating conditions such as insomnia, neurasthenia, and inflammation. This fungus usually grows in an environment characterized by termite nests. Recent studies have shown that X. nigripes contains many valuable biological compounds such as polysaccharides, nucleosides, and sterols, which provide important biological effects, such as antioxidants, liver protection, immune system regulation, and diabetes treatment. In addition to pharmacological potential, many research works have focused on developing X. nigripes biomass kernel techniques under artificial culture conditions, in order to optimize growth and accumulation of active ingredients. These results not only contribute to clarifying the application potential of this mushroom in the pharmaceutical field but also create a scientific foundation for the sustainable exploitation of this rare medicinal resource.

Sesuvium portulacastrum was shown to absorb sodium (Na+) and clor (Cl-) from the soil and accumulate it within its tissues. Therefore, it was chosen as a good plant for the phytodesalination of saline soils. The present study aimed to evaluate plant capacity to accumulate cloride ions and the potential to desalinize in saline soil medium of this halophyte. The results show that S. portulacastrum has a high tolerance at salt concentrations from 0.5% - 5% in growth terms of stem height, number of branches level 1, root length, and fresh biomass. Plants absorb a marked Cl- ions content clorideine and accumulate in roots, stems, and leaves. The efficiency of salt removal is 92% in the treatment of NaCl 1%. These results contribute to reducing soil salinity, so it is possible to apply sea buckthorn to treat saline soil environments.

Declining supplies of fossil fuels, increasing population, global industrialization and demand for transportation fuels has triggered an increase in the demand for renewable energy sources. To address such problems most of the green research in the recent years has focused on the development of bioethanol (23 MJ/L) as a substitute to conventional gasoline (34.3 MJ/L) based fuels owing to the similarity in energy density values in addition to several other advantages (American Council on renewable energy, 2010). Second-generation biofuels are derived from lignocellulosic biomass or woody crops, mostly coming from agricultural residues. Extraction of fuel from such biomass is difficult because of their recalcitrant nature (corn stover, rice straw, wheat straw, sugar cane and sweet sorghum). Lignocellulosic fuel has the potential to solve several problems (food competing with fuel) that are currently associated with first generation biofuels. Moreover, lignocellulosic fuels can supply a larger proportion of the global fuel leading to sustainability at lower cost, and with greater environmental benefits (Liz Marsall, 2009). The production of ethanol from the complex sugars in leaves and stalks is a promising strategy to radically broaden the range of possible ethanol feedstock. Keywords: lignocellulose, bioethanol, biomass, pretreatment, hydrolysis, fermentation.

Lignocellulosic biomass is one of the largest carbohydrate sources and has huge potential for biofuels production. However, the problem with lignocellulosic feedstock is that it has useful sugars locked in by lignin, hemicellulose, and cellulose. Some kind of pretreatment; therefore is needed to make carbohydrate accessible which later can be fermented to produce ethanol. The results from this research indicated that the yields of glucan (93%) and xylan (82.8%) were improved by using milling combined with ELLA pretreatment. The optimal enzymatic hydrolysis efficiencies were obtained under 10 min for ball milling time, pretreatment at 1 h, temperature at 150°C, S/L = 0.5 and ammonia loading at 0.25 g-NH3/g-biomass. This method reduced the pretreatment time and short milling time and thus has potential of reducing the energy consumption and promising the application in the large scale. Keywords: corn stover, milling pretreatments, ammonia pretreatment, bioethanol.