Biogas as a fuel source for proton-exchange membrane fuel cell

Paper presented to the 10th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Florida, 14-16 July 2014.This paper discusses the use of biogas in Proton exchange Membrane fuel cells. Biogas is a mixture of gases, mainly methane and carbon dioxide. This mixture must be purified and then reformed, producing syngas and separating hydrogen from its composition. The CO present in the reformed gas in contact with the surface of the catalyst particles (a platinum-based) of the anode of PEM fuel cell is adsorbed impairing the oxidation of hydrogen, which leads to a decrease in cell efficiency. The reformed gas may not contain in its composition carbon monoxide concentrations greater than 50 ppm. The operating conditions of the system and the cost of the process are the main challenges of using biogas in PEM fuel cells.cf201

Dual DNA barcoding for the molecular identification of the agents of invasive fungal infections

Invasive fungal infections, such as aspergillosis, candidiasis, and cryptococcosis, have significantly increased among immunocompromised people. To tackle these infections the first and most decisive step is the accurate identification of the causal pathogen. Routine identification of invasive fungal infections has progressed away from culture-dependent methods toward molecular techniques, including DNA barcoding, a highly efficient and widely used diagnostic technique. Fungal DNA barcoding previously relied on a single barcoding region, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region. However, this allowed only for 75% of all fungi to be correctly identified. As such, the translational elongation factor 1α (TEF1α) was recently introduced as the secondary barcode region to close the gap. Both loci together form the dual fungal DNA barcoding scheme. As a result, the ISHAM Barcoding Database has been expanded to include sequences for both barcoding regions to enable practical implementation of the dual barcoding scheme into clinical practice. The present study investigates the impact of the secondary barcode on the identification of clinically important fungal taxa, that have been demonstrated to cause severe invasive disease. Analysis of the barcoding regions was performed using barcoding gap analysis based on the genetic distances generated with the Kimura 2-parameter model. The secondary barcode demonstrated an improvement in identification for all taxa that were unidentifiable with the primary barcode, and when combined with the primary barcode ensured accurate identification for all taxa analyzed, making DNA barcoding an important, efficient and reliable addition to the diagnostic toolset of invasive fungal infections. Copyright © 2019 Hoang, Irinyi, Chen, Sorrell, the ISHAM Barcoding of Medical Fungi Working Group and Meyer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms