Carbohydrate Characteristics of Cotton Plant Biomass Products and Byproducts.

Various cotton byproducts (such as cotton stalk, cotton boll shell, cotton gin trash, whole cottonseed, cottonseed hull, and defatted cottonseed meal) have been tested for biochar and bioenergy (biogas and bio-oil) production. It is also reported that pyrolysis-produced bio-oil, although not from cotton byproducts, could be used as "green" adhesive components. All these utilizations are mainly based on the lignocellulosic components in the cotton biomass. Therefore, we collected whole cotton plants and separated them into different biomass fractions -- main stems, leaf blades, branches, petioles, roots, and reproductive part (midseason) or bur, peduncles+bracts, and cotton seed (harvest ready). The contents of seven carbohydrates (fucose, arabinose, rhamnose, galactose, glucose, xylose, and mannose) as well as strong-acid extractable glucose, cellulose, hemicellulose and acid detergent lignin in these biomass materials were determined.  Data reported in this work would be helpful in exploring and optimizing processing strategies in utilization of these cotton crop biomass materials as renewable natural resources for agricultural-oriented biochar and adhesive-oriented bio-oil.