Biogas Production from N-Methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO) Pretreated Forest Residues

Lignocellulosic biomass represents a great potential for biogas production. However, a suitable pretreatment is needed to improve their digestibility. This study investigates the effects of an organic solvent, N-Methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO) at temperatures of 120 and 90 °C, NMMO concentrations of 75 and 85 % and treatment times of 3 and 15 h on the methane yield. The long-term effects of the treatment were determined by a semicontinuous experiment. The best results were obtained using 75 % NMMO at 120 °C for 15 h, resulting in 141 % increase in the methane production. These conditions led to a decrease by 9 % and an increase by 8 % in the lignin and in the carbohydrate content, respectively. During the continuous digestion experiments, a specific biogas production rate of 92 NmL/gVS/day was achieved while the corresponding rate from the untreated sample was 53 NmL/gVS/day. The operation conditions were set at 4.4 gVS/L/day organic loading rate (OLR) and hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 20 days in both cases. NMMO pretreatment has substantially improved the digestibility of forest residues. The present study shows the possibilities of this pretreatment method; however, an economic and technical assessment of its industrial use needs to be performed in the future.     

Chaetopterus variopedatus Bioluminescence: A Review of Light Emission within a Species Complex

Chaetopterus variopedatus has been studied for over a century in terms of its physiology, ecology and life history. One focus of research is on its intrinsic bioluminescent emissions, which can be observed as a blue light emitted from the extremities of individual body segments, or as a secreted mucus. Even though research shows that C. variopedatus is a species complex miscategorized as a single species, all of the variants of this polychaete produce light, which has been investigated in terms of both physiology and biochemistry. Despite decades of study, there are still many questions about the luminescence reaction, and, as of yet, no clear function for light emission exists. This review summarizes the current knowledge on C. variopedatus luminescence in addition to briefly describing its morphology, life cycle and ecology. Possible functions for luminescence were discussed using observations of specimens found in Brazil, along with a comparison of previous studies of other luminescent organisms. Further study will provide a better understanding of how and why C. variopedatus produces luminescence, and purifying the protein and luciferin involved could lead to new bioanalytical applications, as this reaction is unique among all known luminescent systems.     

Synthesis,characterization, and design of a photocatalyst based on BiOBr nanoplates and tin porphyrin with enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity

Research on Chemical Intermediates - The bismuth oxybromide (BiOBr) photocatalyst was first synthesized via a simple co-precipitation method. To improve the visible light photocatalytic activity of...     

Efficient eco-friendly syntheses of dithiocarbazates and thiosemicarbazones

ABSTRACT

Eight Schiff bases have been synthesized by conventional and three different eco-friendly methods, whereby two aromatic carbonyl compounds viz. 2-thiophenecarboxaldehyde and salicylaldehyde were reacted with S-methyl, S-benzyl, and S-n-octyl-dithiocarbazates and thiosemicarbazide. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the synthesis methods, the time to complete the reaction and the yield of the Schiff base synthezised by eco-friendly methods, such as solvent-free grinding, water as a solvent, and lemon juice as catalyst, were compared with those synthesized by the conventional method. The chemical structures of all the synthesized Schiff bases, where two of them are novel and reported for the first time, were fully characterized by a variety of physico-chemical, analytical, and spectroscopic techniques. The molecular and crystal structures of the Schiff bases especially those having 2-thiophene moiety were further elucidated by single crystal X-ray diffraction analyzes.     

Stability and Removal of Benzophenone-Type UV Filters from Water Matrices by Advanced Oxidation Processes

Benzophenone (BP) type UV filters are common environmental contaminants that are posing a growing health concern due to their increasing presence in water. Different studies have evidenced the presence of benzophenones (BP, BP-1, BP-2, BP-3, BP-4, BP-9, HPB) in several environmental matrices, indicating that conventional technologies of water treatment are not able to remove them. It has also been reported that these compounds could be associated with endocrine-disrupting activities, genotoxicity, and reproductive toxicity. This review focuses on the degradation kinetics and mechanisms of benzophenone-type UV filters and their degradation products (DPs) under UV and solar irradiation and in UV-based advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) such as UV/H₂O₂, UV/persulfate, and the Fenton process. The effects of various operating parameters, such as UV irradiation including initial concentrations of H₂O₂, persulfate, and Fe²⁺, on the degradation of tested benzophenones from aqueous matrices, and conditions that allow higher degradation rates to be achieved are presented. Application of nanoparticles such as TiO₂, PbO/TiO₂, and Sb₂O₃/TiO₂ for the photocatalytic degradation of benzophenone-type UV filters was included in this review.     

Gravitomagnetic Effects on Collective Plasma Oscillations in Compact Stars

The effects of gravitomagnetic force on plasma oscillations are investigated using the kinetic theory of homogeneous electrically neutral plasma in the absence of external electric or magnetic field. The random phase assumption is employed neglecting the thermal motion of the electrons with respect to a fixed ion background. It is found that the gravitomagnetic force reduces the characteristic frequency of the plasma thus enhancing the refractive index of the medium. The estimates for the predicted effects are given for a typical white dwarf, pulsar, and neutron star.     

Pomegranate peel waste biomass modified with H3PO4 as a promising sorbent for uranium(VI) removal

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - Modified pomegranate peel was utilized as a sorbent for the biosorption of uranium(VI) from the aqueous solution. The biosorbent was characterized...     

Inorganic/organometallic catalysts and initiators involving weakly coordinating anions for isobutene polymerisation

Polyisobutenes have numerous industrial applications, e.g. as rubbers, sealants, lubricants and oil additives. For the latter two applications, being the largest end-use markets, polyisobutenes are produced on a several 105 t scale per year. Polyisobutenes applied in mineral oil applications are of low molecular weight. They are industrially produced at temperatures below 0 °C, usually with very active but simple inorganic Lewis acid initiators. During the last decade, research groups developed and examined new types of mostly inorganic/organometallic initiators that work closer to ambient temperatures and provide polymer products of high quality, being at least on a par with the current large scale produced industrial products. An overview on the state of the art and new developments is given in this article.