Bioremediation of Cd by Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation

Contamination by Cd is a significant environmental problem. Therefore, we examined Cd removal from an environmental perspective. Ureolysis-driven calcium carbonate precipitation has been proposed for use in geotechnical engineering for soil remediation applications. In this study, 55 calcite-forming bacterial strains were newly isolated from various environments. Biomineralization of Cd by calcite-forming bacteria was investigated in laboratory-scale experiments. A simple method was developed to determine the effectiveness of microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP). Using this method, we determined the effectiveness of biomineralization for retarding the flow of crystal violet through a 25-mL column. When the selected bacteria were analyzed using an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer, high removal rates (99.95 %) of Cd were observed following incubation for 48 h. Samples of solids that formed in the reaction vessels were examined using a scanning electron microscope. The CdCO₃ compounds primarily showed a spherical shape. The results of this study demonstrate that MICP-based sequestration of soluble heavy metals via coprecipitation with calcite may be useful for toxic heavy metal bioremediation.     

Synthesis and magnetic properties of CdS/α-Fe_2O_3 hierarchical nanostructures

CdS/α-Fe2O3 hierarchical nanostructures, where the CdS nanorods grow irregularly on the side surface of α-Fe2O3 nanorods, were synthesized via a three-step process. The diameters and lengths of CdS nanorods can be tuned by changing the ethylenediamine (EDA) and Cd ion concentrations. The magnetic investigations by superconducting quantum interference device indicate that the hierarchical nanostructures have an Morin transition at lower temperature (230 K) than that of the single bulk α-Fe2O3 materials (263 ...     

Computationally efficient locality-aware interconnection topology for multi-processor system-on-chip (MP-SoC)

This paper evaluates the Triplet Based Architecture, TriBA – a new idea in chip multiprocessor architectures and a class of Direct Interconnection Network (DIN). TriBA consists of a 2D grid of small, programmable processing units, each physically connected to its three neighbors so that advantageous features of group locality can be fully and efficiently utilized. Any communication model can be well characterized by locality properties and, any topology has its intrinsic, structural, locality characteristics. We propose a new criterion in performance evaluation that is based on the concept of locality in an interconnection network, the “lower layer complete connect”. Our proposed criterion depicts how completely a processing node is connected to all its neighbors. TriBA is compared with 2D Mesh and Binary Tree as static interconnection network. The comparison / evaluation is enumerated from three orthogonal view points, viz., computational speed, physical layout and cost. Our analysis concludes that TriBA is computationally efficient interconnection strategy that exploits group locality in processing nodes.     

Preparation of silica nanowires using porous silicon as Si source

This very paper is focusing on the preparation of silica nano-wires via annealing porous silicon wafer at 1200 °C in H₂ atmosphere and without the assistant metal catalysts. X-ray diffraction, X-ray energy dispersion spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and selected area diffraction technology have been employed for characterizing the structures, the morphology and the chemical components of the nano-wires prepared, respectively. It is found that the diameter and the length of the nano-wires were about 100 nm and tens micron, respectively. Meanwhile, it is also necessary to be pointed out that silica NWs only formed in the cracks of porous wafers, where the stress induced both by the electro-chemical etching procedure for the porous silicon preparation and nanowires growth procedure is believed to be lower than that at the center of the island. Therefore, a stress-driven mechanism for the NWs growth model is proposed to explain these findings.     

Synthesis and magnetic properties of CdS/α-Fe<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript> hierarchical nanostructures

CdS/α-Fe₂O₃ hierarchical nanostructures, where the CdS nanorods grow irregularly on the side surface of α-Fe₂O₃ nanorods, were synthesized via a three-step process. The diameters and lengths of CdS nanorods can be tuned by changing the ethylenediamine (EDA) and Cd ion concentrations. The magnetic investigations by superconducting quantum interference device indicate that the hierarchical nanostructures have an Morin transition at lower temperature (230 K) than that of the single bulk α-Fe₂O₃ materials (263 K). Importantly, the hierarchical nanostructures exhibit weakly ferromagnetic characteristics at 300 K. A sharp peak assigned to the surface trap induced emission are observed in room temperature PL spectra. Combining with the optoelectronic properties of CdS, the CdS/α-Fe₂O₃ hierarchical nanostructures may be used as multi-functional materials for optoelectronic and magnetic devices. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 50772025 and 50872159), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Grant No. 2008DFR20420), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 20060400042 and 200801044), the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province, China (Grant No. F200828), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (Grant No. 20070217002), and the Innovation Foundation of Harbin City (Grant No. RC2006QN017016)     

Solvent and catalyst free azo-Michael addition under high-speed vibration milling

Under the high-speed vibration milling conditions,the solvent and catalyst-free azo-Michael addition of chalcone derivatives and amines was found to proceed efficiently in excellent yields at ambient temperature in short reaction time.In most cases,conventional side reactions were avoided and thus quantitative yields were achieved.The influences of the vibration frequency and reaction time on the azo-Michael addition were investigated.     

Bioremediation of Cd by Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation

Contamination by Cd is a significant environmental problem. Therefore, we examined Cd removal from an environmental perspective. Ureolysis-driven calcium carbonate precipitation has been proposed for use in geotechnical engineering for soil remediation applications. In this study, 55 calcite-forming bacterial strains were newly isolated from various environments. Biomineralization of Cd by calcite-forming bacteria was investigated in laboratory-scale experiments. A simple method was developed to determine the effectiveness of microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP). Using this method, we determined the effectiveness of biomineralization for retarding the flow of crystal violet through a 25-mL column. When the selected bacteria were analyzed using an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer, high removal rates (99.95 %) of Cd were observed following incubation for 48 h. Samples of solids that formed in the reaction vessels were examined using a scanning electron microscope. The CdCO₃ compounds primarily showed a spherical shape. The results of this study demonstrate that MICP-based sequestration of soluble heavy metals via coprecipitation with calcite may be useful for toxic heavy metal bioremediation.     

One-pot synthesis of crystalline SnO2 nanoparticles and their low-temperature ethanol sensing characteristics

Crystalline SnO2 nanoparticles(NPs) with a diameter less than 6 nm are synthesized using potassium stannate trihydrate as the precursor in a basic system.The synthesized NPs can detect ethanol at a ppm level even at 100℃.Furthermore,the NPs have good selectivity to ethanol.The excellent ethanol sensing performances are attributed to the small size effect according to the space-charge model.     

The one-pot process for the preparation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">N</Emphasis>-monoalkyl aromatic amines from nitroarene derivatives

A series of N-monoalkyl aromatic amines are synthesized in high yields from corresponding nitroarene derivatives, aldehydes, and ammonium formate in the presence of Pd/C as a catalyst through one-pot operations at room temperature. Both the conversion and selectivity of the process are above 80%. Optimum reaction conditions are investigated, and it is found that the optimum molar ratio of nitroarene derivatives to ammonium formate and the optimum weight ratio of nitroarene derivatives to Pd/C are 1/4 and 1/0.10, respectively. These experiments provide a novel access for N-monoalkyl aromatic amines with advantages of simplicity, high selectivity, and environmental benignity.     

Development of fully 3D image reconstruction techniques for pinhole SPECT imaging

The purpose of this study was to develop fully 3D image reconstruction techniques for pinhole SPECT imaging with our Micro-SPECT system.Our studies involve in the derivation of projection operators,analysis of the sampling characteristics of pinhole SPECT imaging in Radon space,development of effective geometric calibration method for system misalignment,and 3D image reconstruction development and implementation with quantitative degrading compensation for pinhole SPECT with both circular and helical scan.The performances of pinhole SPECT imaging were evaluated using computer simulations and experiments with the Ultra-Micro Hot-Spot phantom,Ultra-Micro Defrise phantom and small-animal imaging.The results from the computer simulations and phantom imaging experiments indicate that the statistically-based iterative algorithms with quantitative compensation provide overall image quality improvement,and the system resolution is significantly recovered for quantitative imaging.The helical pinhole SPECT improves the axial field-of-view (FOV) as compared with the standard pinhole SPECT with circular-orbit scan.The mouse bone imaging experiment shows that the helical pinhole SPECT imaging also provides decent high-resolution whole-body small animal imaging.In conclusion,we have successfully developed a set of valid fully 3D image reconstruction techniques for single-pinhole SPECT imaging.These techniques can be easily extended to multi-pinhole SPECT imaging.