Codigestion of manure and organic wastes in centralized biogas plants: status and future trends

Centralized biogas plants in Denmark codigest mainly manure, together with other organic waste such as industrial organic waste, source sorted household waste, and sewage sludge. Today 22 large-scale centralized biogas plants are in operation in Denmark, and in 2001 they treated approx 1.2 million tons of manure as well as approx 300,000 of organic industrial waste. Besides the centralized biogas plants there are a large number of smaller farm-scale plants. The long-term energy plan objective is a 10-fold increase of the 1998 level of biogas production by the year 2020. This will help to achieve a target of 12-14% of the national energy consumption being provided by renewable energy by the year 2005 and 33% by the year 2030. A major part of this increase is expected to come from new centralized biogas plants. The annual potential for biogas production from biomass resources available in Denmark is estimated to be approx 30 Peta Joule (PJ). Manure comprises about 80% of this potential. Special emphasis has been paid to establishing good sanitation and pathogen reduction of the digested material, to avoid risk of spreading pathogens when applying the digested manure as fertilizer to agricultural soils.     

Bestimmung des Oxydationszustandes in Vanadiumkomplexen mit Hilfe von V—K-Röntgenabsorptionsspektren

Determination of the Oxydation State in Vanadium Complexes using V—K-Absorption Spectra The compounds resulting from the reaction of oxovanadium(IV) sulfate with 8-quinolinols in air were characterized by magnetic moments and V—K-absorption spectra. 8-quinolinol and its Mannich derivates (“CMAB-oxine”, “CMAP-oxine”) form vanadium(V) complexes. The oxovanadium(IV) compound of 7-methyl-8-quinolinol initially formed is not very stable in solution and tends to oxydation. Only the oxovanadium(IV) complex of 2-methyl-8-quinolinol has a good stability corresponding to that of β-diketone compounds.     

Beta-sheet preferences from first principles

The natural amino acids have different preferences of occurring in specific types of secondary protein structure. Simulations are performed on periodic model beta-sheets of 14 different amino acids, at the level of density functional theory, employing the generalized gradient approximation. We find that the statistically observed beta-sheet propensities correlate very well with the calculated binding energies. Analysis of the calculations shows that the beta-sheet propensities are determined by the local flexibility of the individual polypeptide strands.     

Post-polymerization modification of aromatic polyimides via Diels-Alder cycloaddition

We report a facile post-polymerization modification route to functionalized aromatic polyimides via Diels-Alder cycloaddition. Aromatic polyimides are important, versatile high-performance polymers; however, their structural diversity is restricted by the requirements of the step-growth polymerization. We prepared polyimides with alkynes in their main-chain as macromolecular dienophiles and quantitatively grafted tetraphenylcyclopentadienone based dienes. The resulting solution-processable, wholly aromatic polyimides show a considerable increase in surface area due to the induced conformational changes and bulky, rigid, and contorted molecular structures. The orthogonality of the reaction is exploited to insert functional groups, namely bromine and sulfonates, along the polymer backbone. In a further extension, the phenylene segments undergo cyclodehydrogenation to form nanographene segments within the polymer chains. The Diels-Alder cycloaddition onto polyimides is therefore demonstrated to be an effective, widely applicable route to tunable high-performance polymers with value-added functionality and thus considerable potential in a wide range of advanced materials.     

Double-quantum filtered MAS NMR in the presence of chemical shielding anisotropies and direct dipolar and J couplings

Double-quantum filtered MAS NMR spectra of an isolated homonuclear spin-1/2 pair are considered, at and away from rotational resonance conditions. The pulse sequence used is the solid-state NMR equivalent of double-quantum filtered COSY, known from solution-state NMR. The 119Sn spin pair in [(chex3Sn)2S] is characterized by a difference in isotropic chemical shielding smaller than the two chemical shielding anisotropies and by direct dipolar and isotropic J-coupling constants of similar magnitudes. At rotational resonance, one-dimensional double-quantum filtered 119Sn lineshapes yield the relative orientation of the two 119Sn chemical shielding tensors. Good double-quantum filtration efficiencies are found at and away from rotational resonance conditions, despite the presence of large chemical shielding anisotropies. Numerical simulations illustrate the interplay of the direct dipolar and J-coupling pathways and identify the latter as the main pathway even at rotational resonance conditions.     

Densities and isothermal compressibilities of ionic liquids—Modeling and application

Two corresponding-states forms have been developed for direct correlation function integrals in liquids to represent pressure effects on the volume of ionic liquids over wide ranges of temperature and pressure. The correlations can be analytically integrated from a chosen reference density to provide a full equation of state for ionic liquids over reduced densities from 1.5 to more than 3.6. One approach is empirical with 3 parameters, the other is a 2-parameter theoretical form which is directly connected to a method for predicting gas solubilities in ionic liquids. Parameters for both methods have been obtained for 28 different ionic liquid systems by reduction of carefully validated PρT data. The results show excellent agreement with the experimental data for nearly all substances over all ranges of conditions. Group contributions to parameters are also explored, leading to an entirely predictive method for ambient pressure densities and densities of compressed ionic liquids. Extensive comparisons are made with other techniques.