Separation of polar and non-polar analytes using dimethyl sulfoxide-modified subcritical water

Separations using methanol–water or acetonitrile–water mixtures at different temperatures have been well investigated in reversed-phase liquid chromatography. However, reversed-phase separation with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)–water mixtures is much less studied. In this work, separations of polyhydroxybenzenes, phenol derivatives, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) with DMSO-modified subcritical water were performed at several temperatures to evaluate the effect of temperature on the elution strength of DMSO–water mixtures. The column efficiency obtained by using DMSO-modified subcritical water was also studied. Finally, the resolution of ethylbenzene and p-xylene was investigated.     

Agro-industrial waste enzymes: Perspectives in circular economy

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, approximately 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted each year, equivalent to approximately one-third of world production. Agri-food wastes are the source of proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and other essential minerals that have been exploited for value-added products by the development of biorefineries and sustainable business as important elements of circular economies. The innovation and materialization of these types of processes, including the use of disruptive technologies on microbial bioconversion and enzyme technology, such as nanotechnology, metabolic engineering, and multi-omics platforms, increase the perspectives on the waste valorization process. Lignocellulolytic enzymes, pectinases, and proteases are mainly used as catalyzers on agri-food waste treatment, and their production in house might be the trend in near future for agro-industrial countries. Another way to transform the agri-food wastes is via aerobic or anaerobic microbial process from fungal or bacterial cultures; these processes are the key to produce waste enzymes.     

Hydrothermal processing of waste pine wood into industrially useful products

An ongoing major outbreak of mountain pine beetle in Western Canada has provided a clear opportunity to utilize waste pinewood as a source of renewable energy. Therefore hydrothermal processing of waste pinewood as a feedstock for bio-oil and biochar production using subcritical and supercritical water technology was carried out in semi-batch mode to investigate the effect of pressure (200–400 bar) and temperature (300–400 °C) on the yield and composition of bio-oil. The pinewood samples have very high cellulose and hemicellulose content but low ash content and are thus a formidable feedstock for bioenergy production. The optimum conditions for the hydrothermal processing of the pinewood in a tubular reactor were found to be 400 °C and 250 bars with respect to biochar and bio-oil yield based on the highest calorific value analysis. Detailed characterization of bio-oil and biochar was performed using GCMS, NMR, SEM, calorific value, and elemental analysis, respectively. The critical components of bio-oil were found to be phenols, methoxyphenols, hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF), and vanillin, whereas as compared to the raw pine wood, the biochar was considerably lower H:C and O:C ratios than those of the unprocessed pinewood. The analyses of bio-oil by means of GCMS and ¹H NMR showed that it was mainly composed of heterocyclic compounds, phenols, aldehydes and acids.     

Ultrasound-assisted desolventizing of fragrant oil from red pepper seed by subcritical propane extraction

In the present study, ultrasound was used to remove the residual solvent from the fragrant oil of red pepper seed obtained by subcritical propane extraction. The physical and chemical characteristics, particularly the volatile flavor compounds present of the oil before and after ultrasound-assisted desolventizing were comprehensively analyzed to determine the effect of the desolventizing process on product quality. The results showed that the maximum loss of residual solvent was achieved at a temperature of 90 °C maintained for 70 min with ultrasound applied during the entire process. After this treatment only a small amount of solvent (2.3% based on the total residual solvent originally present) remained in the oil. Although it was hypothesized that ultrasound treatment could result in the loss of volatile components, the analytical results showed no obvious reduction in the components associated with the typical aroma of the oil. After ultrasonic treatment, the oil also had good oxidation stability and quality. Additionally, after ultrasonic desolventizing, the oil samples were more suitable for cooking because they could more effectively minimize oxidation. Thus, these results demonstrate that this new ultrasonic technique is an effective and efficient method for removing the solvent remaining in fragrant oil after subcritical propane extraction.     

土壤中不同极性污染物的亚临界水选择性萃取

研究了用亚临界水萃取技术选择性萃取土壤中3种不同极性的污染物:2,4-二氯酚(2,4-DCP)、4-氯联苯(4-PCB)和六氯苯(HCB)。研究了在不同温度下亚临界水对分析物的萃取效率。125℃时,萃取物主要是2,4-DCP;250℃时,主要萃取4-PCB和HCB。同时,研究了亚临界水萃取时间、萃取体积对3种物质的萃取效率的影响,确定了土壤中HCB的最佳亚临界水萃取条件为萃取水体积4mL,萃取时间75m in,萃取温度250℃。本方法用于实际样品中的HCB萃取,通过改变萃取温度,可以去除其它污染物对HCB测定的影响,测定结果与索氏提取-GC分析结果吻合较好。与USEPA标准方法8081A相比,本方法可以显著缩短萃取时间、简化净化步骤及减少有机试剂的用量。     

Large time behavior of small solutions to subcritical derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equations

We consider the derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equations

where the coefficient satisfies the time growth condition

is a sufficiently small constant and the nonlinear interaction term consists of cubic nonlinearities of derivative type

where and . We suppose that the initial data satifsfy the exponential decay conditions. Then we prove the sharp decay estimate , for all , where . Furthermore we show that for there exist the usual scattering states, when and the modified scattering states, when

     

Enhanced‐fluidity liquid chromatography using mixed‐mode hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography/strong cation‐exchange retention mechanisms

The potential of enhanced‐fluidity liquid chromatography, a subcritical chromatography technique, in mixed‐mode hydrophilic interaction/strong cation‐exchange separations is explored, using amino acids as analytes. The enhanced‐fluidity liquid mobile phases were prepared by adding liquefied CO₂ to methanol/water mixtures, which increases the diffusivity and decreases the viscosity of the mixture. The addition of CO₂ to methanol/water mixtures resulted in increased retention of the more polar amino acids. The “optimized” chromatographic performance (achieving baseline resolution of all amino acids in the shortest amount of time) of these methanol/water/CO₂ mixtures was compared to traditional acetonitrile/water and methanol/water liquid chromatography mobile phases. Methanol/water/CO₂ mixtures offered higher efficiencies and resolution of the ten amino acids relative to the methanol/water mobile phase, and decreased the required isocratic separation time by a factor of two relative to the acetonitrile/water mobile phase. Large differences in selectivity were also observed between the enhanced‐fluidity and traditional liquid mobile phases. A retention mechanism study was completed, that revealed the enhanced‐fluidity mobile phase separation was governed by a mixed‐mode retention mechanism of hydrophilic interaction/strong cation‐exchange. On the other hand, separations with acetonitrile/water and methanol/water mobile phases were strongly governed by only one retention mechanism, either hydrophilic interaction or strong cation exchange, respectively.     

Existence of positive solutions to an elliptic system with coupled nonlinearity†

In this article, we study weakly coupled systems of elliptic equations without Hamiltonian structure in both bounded domain and the whole space. By using a priori estimates, Pohozaev identity and degree theory, we are able to show the existence of positive solutions.