Biological Pretreatment of Chicken Feather and Biogas Production from Total Broth

Chicken feathers are available in large quantities around the world causing environmental challenges. The feathers are composed of keratin that is a recalcitrant protein and is hard to degrade. In this work, chicken feathers were aerobically pretreated for 2–8 days at total solid concentrations of 5, 10, and 20 % by Bacillus sp. C₄, a bacterium that produces both α- and β-keratinases. Then, the liquid fraction (feather hydrolysate) as well as the total broth (liquid and solid fraction of pretreated feathers) was used as substrates for biogas production using anaerobic sludge or bacteria granules as inoculum. The biological pretreatment of feather waste was productive; about 75 % of feather was converted to soluble crude protein after 8 days of degradation at initial feather concentration of 5 %. Bacteria granules performed better during anaerobic digestion of untreated feathers, resulting in approximately two times more methane yield (i.e., 199 mlCH₄/gVS compared to 105 mlCH₄/gVS when sludge was used). Pretreatment improved methane yield by 292 and 105 % when sludge and granules were used on the hydrolysate. Bacteria granules worked effectively on the total broth, yielded 445 mlCH₄/gVS methane, which is 124 % more than that obtained with the same type of inoculum from untreated feather.     

Sequence‐based prediction of protein–peptide binding sites using support vector machine

Protein–peptide interactions are essential for all cellular processes including DNA repair, replication, gene‐expression, and metabolism. As most protein – peptide interactions are uncharacterized, it is cost effective to investigate them computationally as the first step. All existing approaches for predicting protein – peptide binding sites, however, are based on protein structures despite the fact that the structures for most proteins are not yet solved. This article proposes the first machine‐learning method called SPRINT to make Sequence‐based prediction of Protein – peptide Residue‐level Interactions. SPRINT yields a robust and consistent performance for 10‐fold cross validations and independent test. The most important feature is evolution‐generated sequence profiles. For the test set (1056 binding and non‐binding residues), it yields a Matthews’ Correlation Coefficient of 0.326 with a sensitivity of 64% and a specificity of 68%. This sequence‐based technique shows comparable or more accurate than structure‐based methods for peptide‐binding site prediction. SPRINT is available as an online server at: http://sparks-lab.org/ . © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Continuous cultivation of dilute-acid hydrolysates to ethanol by immobilized Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The continuous cultivation of immobilized Saccharomyces cerevisiae CBS 8066 on dilute-acid hydrolysates of forest residuals was investigated. The yeast cells were immobilized in 2–4% Ca-alginate beads. The 2% beads were not stable. However, the 3 and 4% beads were stable for at least 3 wk when an extra resource of calcium ions was available in the medium. The continuous cultivation of a dilute-acid hydrolysate by the immobilized cells at dilution rates of 0.3, 0.5, and 0.6 h⁻¹ resulted in 86, 83, and 79% sugar consumption, respectively, and an ethanol yield between 0.45 and 0.48 g/g. The hydrolysate was fermentable at a dilution rate of 0.1 h⁻¹ in a free-cell system but washed out at a dilution rate of 0.2 h⁻¹. The continuous cultivation of a more inhibiting hydrolysate was not successful by either free- or immobilized-cell systems even at a low dilution rate of 0.07 h⁻¹. However, when the hydrolysate was overlimed, it was fermentable by the immobilized cells at a dilution rate of 0.2 h⁻¹.     

Flavin Derivatives with Tailored Redox Properties: Synthesis,Characterization, and Electrochemical Behavior

This study establishes structure–property relationships for four synthetic flavin molecules as bioinspired redox mediators in electro‐ and photocatalysis applications. The studied flavin compounds were disubstituted with polar substituents at the N1 and N3 positions (alloxazine) or at the N3 and N10 positions (isoalloxazines). The electrochemical behavior of one such synthetic flavin analogue was examined in detail in aqueous solutions of varying pH in the range from 1 to 10. Cyclic voltammetry, used in conjunction with hydrodynamic (rotating disk electrode) voltammetry, showed quasi‐reversible behavior consistent with freely diffusing molecules and an overall global 2e^?, 2H⁺ proton‐coupled electron transfer scheme. UV/Vis spectroelectrochemical data was also employed to study the pH‐dependent electrochemical behavior of this derivative. Substituent effects on the redox behavior were compared and contrasted for all the four compounds, and visualized within a scatter plot framework to afford comparison with prior knowledge on mostly natural flavins in aqueous media. Finally, a preliminary assessment of one of the synthetic flavins was performed of its electrocatalytic activity toward dioxygen reduction as a prelude to further (quantitative) studies of both freely diffusing and tethered molecules on various electrode surfaces.     

Deduction of static surface roughness from complex excess attenuation

Data for complex excess attenuation have been used to determine the effective surface admittance and hence characteristic roughness size of a surface comprising a random distribution of semi-cylindrical rods on an acoustically hard plane. The inversion for roughness size is based on a simplified boss model. The technique is shown to be effective to within 4%, up to a threshold roughness packing density of 32%, above which the interaction between scattering elements appears to exceed that allowed by the model.     

Effect of Fe2O3 as an accelerator on the reaction mechanism of Al–TiO2 nanothermite system

Thermite reactions between aluminum and metal oxides could lead to the formation of intermetallic matrix composites used in high-temperature industrial applications. Thermite reaction in Al–TiO₂ system needs a considerable amount of energy to take place by mechanochemical or by the combustion synthesis (CS) method due to the low amount of reaction enthalpy in Al–TiO₂ system. In this study, Fe₂O₃ was chosen as a accelerator for this system, to generate a high amount of heat which could be released between Fe₂O₃ and Al, leading to a more convenient reaction between Al and TiO₂ in the CS process. The results of XRD, SEM, and DSC analyses indicated that both the mechanical activation of Al–TiO₂ system in a high-energy ball mill and the Fe₂O₃ addition led to considerable effects of reduction in the reaction temperature and increase in the reaction intensity in Al–TiO₂ nanothermite system. Finally, it was shown that Fe₃Al intermetallic compounds as well as γ-AlTi and alumina phases in the final products were formed after the CS of the milled powders.     

The effects of cerium doping concentration on the properties and photocatalytic activity of bimetallic Mo/Ce catalyst

In this study, the characterization and photocatalytic activity of MoO₃ nanoparticles doped with various doping concentrations of cerium have been investigated. The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra of the prepared catalysts confirmed that MoO₃ particles have been successfully doped by cerium. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) was performed to visualize the surface morphology of the obtained catalysts. The XRD patterns suggested that the crystallinity of the sample with the lowest doping concentration of 15 mol % was higher in comparison with samples of higher doping concentrations. The volume-averaged crystal sizes of the obtained catalysts were calculated to be 25, 28, and 32 nm for 15, 35, and 60 mol % samples, respectively. The photocatalytic activity along with the reaction kinetics of Ce-doped MoO₃ nanoparticles have also been investigated through the dye degradation of methyl orange. The synthesized Ce-doped MoO₃ particles with the lowest dopant concentration of 15 mol % exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity for methyl orange dye degradation. It was observed that photo-degradation activity decreased with an increase in the doping concentration of cerium. The predicted rate constants for samples with 15, 35, and 60 mol % doping concentrations were found to be 0.0432, 0.035, and 0.029 min^–1, respectively.     

Parametric study of plasma active medium and gain saturation region in a Ne-like soft X-ray laser

Plasmas created by the interaction of high power optical laser with a target surface can be used as a source of soft X-ray lasers. Plasma and pump laser characteristics play significant role in achieving high gain coefficient for such plasma based on soft X-ray lasers. In the present work, the plasma active medium parameters for germanium element at a wavelength of 19.6 nm irradiated by a double-pulse pump laser have been studied using MED103 hydrodynamic code. For this purpose, first, the effects of laser intensity, pulse width and delay time of two pulses on the gain coefficient have been investigated and the optimum conditions for the maximum gain extent of Ne-like germanium soft X-ray laser are obtained. Then, in order to calculate the intensity of such high gain lasers in which Linford equation is invalid, we have adopted the general formula of amplified spontaneous emission intensity, which is valid in all range of intensities even at much higher intensities than saturation intensity. Finally, the soft X-ray laser intensities in the saturated areas for different plasma lengths have been calculated. The results show that the output of soft X-ray laser intensity with 294 cm⁻¹ gain coefficient can reach to about several times saturated intensity by applying a 1–2 mm plasma length as the active medium.     

A simple method to estimate relative stabilities of polyethers cationized by alkali metal ions

Dissociation of doubly cationized polyethers, namely [P + 2X]²⁺ into [P + X]⁺ and X⁺, where P = polyethylene glycol (PEG), polypropylene glycol (PPG) and polytetrahydrofuran (PTHF) and X = Na, K and Cs, was studied by means of energy‐dependent collision‐induced dissociation tandem mass spectrometry. It was observed that the collision voltage necessary to obtain 50% fragmentation (CV₅₀) determined for the doubly cationized polyethers of higher degree of polymerization varied linearly with the number of degrees of freedom (DOF) values. This observation allowed us to correlate these slopes with the corresponding relative gas‐phase dissociation energies for binding of alkali ions to polyethers. The relative dissociation energies determined from the corresponding slopes were found to decrease in the order Na⁺ > K⁺ > Cs⁺ for each polyether studied, and an order PPG ≈ PEG > PTHF can be established for each alkali metal ion. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.