Herbicidan control of water hyacinth at Ere, Ogun State: implications for fish production

A brief account is given of a pilot demonstration of the chemical control of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) at Ere (a channel) in Nigeria using the herbicide glyphosphate. Results suggest that there was an increase in the nutrient content of the channel after herbicide application. This implied an upsurge of available food for fish and other aquatic organisms within the channel after the herbicide application. The decaying water hyacinth mass which sinks into the medium is likely to boost nutrient content, promoting the growth of fish and other aquatic animals. It is concluded that herbicidal control of water hyacinth is possible, especially under specialists' management with the conservation of fish and other non-target aquatic organisms alongside improved fish productio

Catalytic bi-reforming of methane for carbon dioxide ennoblement

6th International Conference on Energy and Environment Research (ICEER)New processes that may reduce the net carbon emissions and contribute to a more circular economy are needed. Bi-reforming of methane (BRM) is a promising method for syngas production, with a hydrogen-to-carbon monoxide ratio of two in the reaction products, relevant for example when the purpose is methanol synthesis. In this work, reaction studies were carried out over a nickel-based catalyst varying the temperature (798–1123 K). Three main temperature zones have been identified; a low temperature zone where the conversion of carbon dioxide is almost null, a middle temperature range where steam reforming of methane (SRM) is dominant while the conversion of carbon dioxide via dry reforming of methane (DRM) is low, and finally a high temperature range where DRM becomes more significant. The results show that syngas can be successfully produced using this process. For the range of operating conditions studied, the carbon dioxide and methane conversions increase with temperature, reaching 40% and 100%, respectively at the largest temperature studied. However, the production of syngas in a molar ratio of 1:2 for CO-to-H requires the use of high temperatures. Most probably the nickel agglomerates on top of the -alumina support are responsible for the poor catalyst performance.FCT, Portugal funded research grants SFRH/BPD/112003/2015, SFRH/BPD/105623/2015 and IF/01093/2014 and Center for Innovation in Engineering and Industrial Technology — CIETI, Portugal, UID/EQU/00305/2013. Project UID/EQU/00511/2019 - Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy — LEPABE funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC), Portugal; Project “LEPABE-2-ECO-INNOVATION” – NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000005, funded by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), Portugal, under PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This work was financially supported by: Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM, Portugal – UID/EQU/50020/2019 – funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC), Portugal .info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Comparison of different lipid extraction procedures applied to three microalgal species

6th International Conference on Energy and Environment ResearchThe increase in the world’s energy demand has contributed to the emergence of new sustainable energy sources, such as microalgae, with their great potential to provide biofuels and other high value co-products for the food and health’s markets. However, current biorefinery methodologies are either too complex to extract the targeted components such as high-value products, or require solvents with toxicity for humans and the environment. This work aims to evaluate different lipid extraction approaches applied to three microalgal species: Chlorella zofingiensis, Phaeodactylum tricornutum, and Arthrospira platensis, while employing less toxic and more economical solvents for the lipids extraction. Experimental results showed a promising outcome to tune current biorefinery methodologies, enhancing product yield as well as decreasing potential hazards.Authors thank the financial support of the project IF/01093/2014/CP1249/CT0003 and research grantsIF/01093/2014 and SFRH/BPD/112003/2015 funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES, Portugal, and projectUID/EQU/00305/2013 - Center for Innovation in Engineering and Industrial Technology - CIETI, Portugal. This work was financially supported by : project UID/EQU/00511/2019 - Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy - LEPABE funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC), Portugal; Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006939 (Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy - LEPABE, UID/EQU/00511/2013) funded by FEDER, Portugal through COMPETE2020-POCI and by national funds through FCT, Portugal; Project “LEPABE-2-ECO-INNOVATION” - NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000005, funded by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), Portugal , under PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Authors also acknowledge the “Grupo Interdisciplinario de Biotecnología Marina (GIBMAR) and “Convenio de Desempeño Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación para la Bioeconomía” from University of Concepción, Chile, for providing the support to P. tricornutum biomass production.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Life cycle assessment of a vanadium flow battery

The 6th International Conference on Energy and Environment Research, July 22–25, 2019, University of Aveiro, PortugalBattery storage technologies have been showing great potential to address the vulnerability of renewable electricity generation systems. Among the various options, vanadium redox flow batteries are one of the most promising in the energy storage market. In this work, a life cycle assessment of a 5 kW vanadium redox flow battery is performed on a cradle-to-gate approach with focus on the vanadium electrolytes, since they determine the battery’s storage capacity and can be readjusted and reused indefinitely. The functional unit is 1 kWh stored by the battery. The initial results show that the environmental hotspots reside mainly in the structural and material components of the battery, evidencing the need for alternative or recycled materials, preferably produced locally. Since the quantity of electrolytes determine the amount of storable electricity, an analysis was conducted on the variation of the impacts with the increase of storage capacity. An alternative scenario with reused electrolytes was also performed. Results show that with the increase of storage capacity, the contribution of the electrolytes to the impacts decrease significantly by stored kWh. In the reused electrolytes scenario, impacts were reduced mainly for the Acidification and Mineral, fossil and renewable resource depletion categories.This work was financial supported by projects “SunStorage – Harvesting and storage of solar energy”, with reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016387, funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through COMPETE 2020 – Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (OPCI), and to FCT — Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal I.P., project IF/01093/2014/CP1249/CT0003, research grants IF/01093/2014 and SFRH/BPD/112003/2015. Support from POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006939 (Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy — LEPABE, UID/EQU/00511/2019) funded by FEDER, Spain through COMPETE2020-POCI and by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC), Portugal.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Life cycle assessment of a renewable energy generation system with a vanadium redox flow battery in a NZEB household

6th International Conference on Energy and Environment ResearchBuildings are responsible for a significant part of the global energy consumption. Besides the need to improve their energy efficiency, new buildings also need to generate their own energy, preferably from renewable sources, to become more sustainable. As renewable energy generation is strongly dependent on the climatic conditions, energy storage must be considered when designing such a system. In this study, a cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) study of a renewable energy generation system with a prototype Vanadium flow battery integrated in a Near Zero Energy Building (NZEB) is performed. A combined grid-connected PV and a solar thermal system generates the energy, and it was dimensioned to supply the annual energy needs of a household in Porto, Portugal considering the local climatic conditions. As an end of life scenario, it is assumed that the battery is dismantled and most of the materials are recycled. A functional unit of 1 kWh of supplied energy to the system was considered, and study results show that environmental impacts are reduced when the energy is produced onsite and the battery components are recycled or reused. A sensitivity analysis was conducted changing the household’s geographic location.Authors thank the financial support of projects “SunStorage - Harvesting and storage of solar energy”, with reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016387, funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (OPCI), and to FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia I.P., for funding project IF/01093/2014/CP1249/CT0003, research grants IF/01093/2014 and SFRH/BPD/112003/2015, and financial support of POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006939 (Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy - LEPABE, UID/EQU/00511/2019) funded by FEDER through COMPETE2020-POCI and by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC). Authors would also like to thank Dr. Ricardo André Ribeiro Monteiro for the valuable information regarding the vanadium battery prototype obtained within the Sunstorage project.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Flocculation of Arthrospira maxima for improved harvesting

The 6th International Conference on Energy and Environment ResearchThe environmental impacts associated with the burning of fossil fuels coupled with growing concerns about security of energy supply, motivated the search for more sustainable forms of energy production, among which came microalgae for biofuels production. However, the commercial production of microalgae biofuels is still not competitive compared to fossil fuels, as it is necessary to solve some process bottlenecks, among which biomass harvesting, that is the focus of this work. Hence, this work intends to study the harvesting of microalga Arthrospira maxima through flocculation by pH variation and/or addition of CaCl2 as flocculant. Thus, it is described the effect of pH variation (in the range 6 to 12), followed by the addition of flocculant, on the harvesting efficiency. Results show that by pH increase over 10 using NaOH, or by flocculation using CaCl2 at a concentration of 0.2-2.0 g/L and at a 1:30 ratio (v/v) of CaCl2/microalgae culture, it is possible to effectively harvest this microalga.Authors thank the financial support of the project IF/01093/2014/CP1249/CT0003 and research grants IF/01093/2014 and SFRH/BPD/112003/2015 funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES, and project UID/EQU/00305/2013 - Center for Innovation in Engineering and Industrial Technology — CIETI. This work was financially supported by: project UID/EQU/00511/2019 — Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy — LEPABE funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC); Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006939 (Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy — LEPABE, UID/EQU/00511/2013) funded by FEDER through COMPETE2020-POCI and by national funds through FCT; Project “LEPABE-2-ECO-INNOVATION” - NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000005, funded by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).N/

Influence of cultivation conditions on the bioenergy potential and bio-compounds of Chlorella vulgaris

This study aims to evaluate the influence of cultivation conditions on the bioenergy and high value biocompounds contents of Chlorella vulgaris. Results show that the use of nitrate rich media, from 170.7 mg/L, favors a faster biomass growth, reaching values above 800 mg/L biomass. In addition, it favors higher pigments concentrations with more emphasis for the cultures with a nitrate concentration of 569 mg/L, where chlorophyll-a and carotenoids reached maximum concentrations of 6 and 2 mg/L, respectively. As regards the lipid content, nitrate deprivation (<28.4 mg/L) favors the accumulation of lipid content by microalgae (around 42%). The use of media with lower iron concentrations (0.5 mg/L) was favorable for obtaining biomass with higher concentrations of chlorophyll-a, at an initial stage, with values varying from 0.2 to 0.6 mg/L. In the tests carried out under mixotrophic conditions (addition of glucose), it was observed that contamination occurred in all the cultures, possibly due to the high concentration of carbon source that had values between 0.5 and 1.5 g/L of glucose, and consequently, growth decreased.Authors thank the financial support of the project IF/01093/2014/CP1249/CT0003 and research grants IF/01093/2014 and SFRH/BPD/112003/2015 funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES, and project UID/EQU/00305/2013 – Center for Innovation in Engineering and Industrial Technology – CIETI. This work was financially supported by: project UID/EQU/00511/2019 – Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy – LEPABE funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC); Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006939 (Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy — LEPABE, UID/EQU/00511/2013) funded by FEDER through COMPETE2020-POCI and by national funds through FCT; Project “LEPABE-2-ECO-INNOVATION” — NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000005, funded by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A life cycle inventory of microalgae-based biofuels production in an industrial plant concept

6th International Conference on Energy and Environment Research, ICEERMicroalgae have been reported as a promising alternative for biofuels production. However, the use of microalgae for biofuels is still a challenge due to the intense energy use and the generation of a significant amount of biomass residues in the process. In order to analyze the environmental impacts of different technological processes for the production of biodiesel from microalgae, several studies have been published making use of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, which allows the recognition of the process bottlenecks and supports the identification of alternatives for a more efficient use of the feedstock. Therefore, in this study, a Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) is compiled, based on real pilot-scale process data, which was scaled-up to a microalgae biomass industrial plant for biofuel production. Values of energy, nutrients, water, and materials consumption are used to create an inventory of inputs and outputs for biomass cultivation and biodiesel production, in order to acquire data to conduct a complete LCA modeling in future studies. According to this model, to produce 1 kg of biodiesel it is necessary about 12 kg of dried algae biomass. This study supports the decision-making process in biofuel production to promote the development of sustainable pilot and large-scale algae-based industry, through the identification of critical factors.This work was funded by: project IF/01093/2014/CP1249/CT0003 and research grants IF/01093/2014 and SFRH/BPD/112003/2015 funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES, Portugal, and project UID/EQU/00305/2013 – Center for Innovation in Engineering and Industrial Technology – CIETI. This work was financially supported by: project UID/EQU/00511/2019 – Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy – LEPABE funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES, Portugal (PIDDAC); Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006939 (Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy – LEPABE, UID/EQU/00511/2013) funded by FEDER through COMPETE2020-POCI and by national funds through FCT, Portugal ; Project “LEPABE-2-ECO-INNOVATION” – NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000005, funded by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Program (NORTE 2020), under PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) . Authors also acknowledge the “Grupo Interdisciplinario de Biotecnología Marina (GIBMAR) and “Convenio de Desempeño Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación para la Bioeconomía” from University of Concepción, Chile, for supporting the experimental data collection at the pilot-plant in Concepción, Chile, during the Research Visit of M. Branco-Vieira.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

BXD recombinant inbred mice as a model to study neurotoxicity

BXD recombinant inbred (RI) lines represent a genetic reference population derived from a cross between C57BL/6J mice (B6) and DBA/2J mice (D2), which through meiotic recombination events possesses recombinant chromosomes containing B6 or D2 haplotype segments. The quantitative trait loci (QTLs) are the locations of segregating genetic polymorphisms and are fundamental to understanding genetic diversity in human disease susceptibility and severity. QTL mapping represents the typical approach for identifying naturally occurring polymorphisms that influence complex phenotypes. In this process, genotypic values at markers of known genomic locations are associated with phenotypic values measured in a segregating population. Indeed, BXD RI strains provide a powerful tool to study neurotoxicity induced by different substances. In this review, we describe the use of BXD RI lines to understand the underlying mechanisms of neurotoxicity in response to ethanol and cocaine, as well as metals and pesticide exposures. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Elementary excitations in one-dimensional spin-orbital models: neutral and charged solitons and their bound states

We study, both numerically and variationally, the interplay between different types of elementary excitations in the model of a spin chain with anisotropic spin-orbit coupling, in the vicinity of the "dimer line" with an exactly known dimerized ground state. Our variational treatment is found to be in a qualitative agreement with the exact diagonalization results. Soliton pairs are shown to be the lowest excitations only in a very narrow region of the phase diagram near the dimer line, and the phase transitions are always governed by magnon-type excitations which can be viewed as soliton-antisoliton bound states. It is shown that when the anisotropy exceeds certain critical value, a new phase boundary appears. In the doped model on the dimer line, the exact elementary charge excitation is shown to be a hole bound to a soliton. Bound states of those "charged solitons" are studied; exact solutions for N-hole bound states are presented.Comment: 11 pages revtex, 6 figure