Ashutosh Kumar Rai – författare

Stress Tolerance in Horticultural Crops: Challenges and Mitigation Strategies explores concepts, strategies and recent advancements in the area of abiotic stress tolerance in horticultural crops, highlighting the latest advances in molecular breeding, genome sequencing and functional genomics approaches. Further sections present specific insights on different aspects of abiotic stress tolerance from classical breeding, hybrid breeding, speed breeding, epigenetics, gene/quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping, transgenics, physiological and biochemical approaches to OMICS approaches, including functional genomics, proteomics and genomics assisted breeding.

Due to constantly changing environmental conditions, abiotic stress such as high temperature, salinity and drought are being understood as an imminent threat to horticultural crops, including their detrimental effects on plant growth, development, reproduction, and ultimately, on yield. This book offers a comprehensive resource on new developments that is ideal for anyone working in the field of abiotic stress management in horticultural crops, including researchers, students and educators.

This edited volume covers sustainable biomass valorization and its application in various sectors.

Bioenergy has concerned enormous attention as a promising alternative to conventional energy resources. Abundance of bioresources and their renewable nature provides a distinct advantage to biofuels from sustainability perspective. Biofuels have found increasing applications in the energy and transportation sector in recent years. Blended fuels are being used worldwide. However, several challenges remain to be addressed due to the diverse nature of biomasses and inherent recalcitrant nature of biological materials used as feedstock. This book aims to provide an overview of recent developments in the production of bioenergy and its applications in various areas. Specific emphasis is given to production of biofuels from modern biomass such as agro-forest waste and dedicated non-edible energy crops that do not interfere with food production. The scope of the book covers synthesis and characterization of biologically derived fuels, advances in microbiological methods and enzyme engineering approaches. The book covers techno-economic analysis to identify challenges and prospects for commercialization of biofuels. The directions for future research should pave way for net zero scenario for a sustainable world.

The book will cater to a wide range of readers interested in learning the fundamentals as well as advances in the field of biofuels.

The book discusses the various sustainable approaches to combine agrowaste and nanomaterials into catalysts or nanocatalysts with the objective of enhancing biofuel production. It explores the practical sustainability of agronanocatalysts in bioenergy production at a mass scale, while also addressing the existing challenges and proposes sustainable remedies to overcome these limitations. Additionally, the book dives into the cost considerations, recognizing it as a major concern for the widespread utility of catalysts, and explores viable commercial applications in this context.

Nanomaterials continue to attract attention in the field of proteins and enzymes due to their versatile physicochemical properties and potential. They offer opportunities to enhance various biofuel production processes by serving as catalysts in the reaction medium. For instance, studies have highlighted the significant improvements in cellulase enzyme production, stability, pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass, and enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency achieved through the utilization of nanomaterials. The impact of nanomaterials on fermentative hydrogen production has also been documented. While the application of nanomaterials in biofuel production processes has been reported in the literature, there remains a need to focus on the type of nanomaterials, their synthesis, and their specific effects on important process parameters. Addressing and evaluating these factors is crucial to effectively improve and streamline biofuel production processes using nanomaterials.