RAMIE (BOEHMERIA NIVEA): AN UNDERUTILIZED PLANT FOR A MULTIPURPOSE INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION; A PERENNIAL PLANT WITH PROTEIN IDENTIFICATION USING MALDI-MS, A BIOSORBENT FOR Hg (II) REMOVAL FROM WATER AND AS A BAST FIBER PRODUCTION VIA ENZYMATIC DEGUMMING

<p>Identifying plant species that can offer life support to humans and animals without damaging the environment is quite challenging. Ramie, one of the oldest fiber crops was studied due to its nutritional value as fodder and other multipurpose applications in, e.g., medicinal, environmental, and textile industrial fields.</p> <p>With a brief discussion of background in Chapter I, Chapter II focused on using a proteomic method to investigate unknown proteins in the leaves of ramie and to study their benefits to the biological system. PPiase and RuBisCO with molecular weight 15 and 52 KDa were identified as the proteins after peptide mass fingerprinting analysis in mascot based based on their matched peptides. These proteins were known to contain some essential amino acids that are useful for food applications and in medicine. These findings may be some of the reasons why most ramie growing countries consume the plant leaves and use them as medicine. Chapter III focuses on using ramie leaves as a low cost biosorbent with suitable pore size for Hg(II) removal. A higher percentage removal from 70 – 90.2 was obtained after the adsorption process.</p> <p>Chapter IV focuses on using a combined degumming method of pectinase enzyme and a 5 % Na₂CO₃ for the treatment of ramie fibers. The treatment method revealed good individual fibers with a clean surface and the removal of the gummy materials on the fiber surface as compared to methods involving only chemical and bacterial enzyme treatment. Chapter V provides the summary and outlook for this research.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2023

Author dc:creator

• Issifu, Abdul Rashid

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Wujian Miao
• Dr. Song Guo
• Dr. Karl J Wallace

• Ramie
• Analytical Chemistry
• Bacteria
• Chemistry
• Environmental Chemistry
• Plants

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/953

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-2026