Progressive managerial bonuses in a spatial Bertrand duopoly

The relationship of managerial bonuses and profit maximization is interesting both from an economic and a managerial viewpoint. Our contribution to this literature is showing that progressive managerial bonuses can increase profits in a spatial Bertrand competition, and furthermore they can help collusion

Comparison of anaerobic degradation processes for bioenergy generation from liquid fraction of pressed solid waste

A novel substrate (obtained from biofraction of municipal solid waste by pressing and called LPW) rich in organic substances was used in three anaerobic degradation processes (biogas, biohydrogen fermentation and microbial fuel cells) to comparatively assess their feasibility for energy recovery. It has turned out that all the processes have successfully degraded that substrate and produced energy carriers (methane and hydrogen) as well as bioelectricity. The maximum energy yields (J g-1 CODremoved day-1) and associated COD removal capacities were 255, 200, 2.8 and 46, 52 and 72 % for biohydrogen, biogas and microbial fuel cell, respectively. The outcomes suggested the prominence of biohydrogen process for simultaneous waste treatment and energy recovery from LPWunder the test conditions ensured. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Biolubricant production in ionic liquids by enzymatic esterification

Esterification of oleic acid with short carbon chain alcohols gives biofuels, with long chain alcohols biolubricants can be produced. Previously biolubricants was successfully produced from fusel oil and isoamyl-alcohol substrates by enzyme catalised esterification, but solution of polar substrates was problematic, that was solved by using ionic liquids. The optimal reaction parameters such as substrate molar ratios, initial water content, amount of enzyme and type of ionic liquid were determined by experimental design using Statistica software. Some of the ionic liquids have catalytic effect by itself, therefore control reactions were necessary to determine which ionic liquid has negligible catalytic effect. In five of the six investigated ionic liquid the yield was the same without enzyme, while in case of B[mim]PF6, the yield was negligible. In shorter time higher yield was achieved in presence of ionic liquid against other methods. Increasing the temperature results higher yield till a limit, higher temperature does not make more product, but thermal desactivation of the enzyme was not occur

The Structure of Hyperalkaline Aqueous Solutions Containing High Concentrations of Gallium - a Solution X-ray Diffraction and Computational Study

Highly concentrated alkaline NaOH/Ga(OH)3 solutions with 1.18 M Ga(III)T 2.32 M and 2.4 M NaOHT 4.9 M (where the subscript T denotes total or analytical concentrations) have been prepared and investigated by solution X-ray diffraction and also by ab initio quantum chemical calculations. The data obtained are consistent with the presence of only one predominant Ga(III)-bearing species in these solutions, that is the tetrahedral hydroxo complex Ga(OH)4–. This finding is in stark contrast to that found for Al(III)-containing solutions of similar concentrations, in which, besides the monomeric complex, an oxo-bridged dimer was also found to form. From the solution X-ray diffraction measurements, the formation of the dimeric (OH)3Ga–O–Ga(OH)32– could not unambiguously be shown, however, from the comparison of experimental IR, Raman and 71Ga NMR spectra with calculated ones, its formation can be safely excluded. Moreover, higher mononuclear stepwise hydroxo complexes, like Ga(OH)63–, that have been claimed to exist by others in the literature, was not possible to experimentally detect in these solutions with any of the spectroscopic techniques used