Laboratory intercomparison of solar absorptance and thermal emittance measurements at room temperature

Solar thermal absorber coatings play an important role in the opto-thermal efficiency of receivers in Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). Two standard figures of merit are the solar absorptance αsol and thermal emittance εth, derived from spectral directional hemispherical reflectance measurements at room temperature. These two figures of merit allow comparing coating formulations in terms of performance and durability. In this study, a black coating and a solar selective coating are optically characterized by different laboratories to compare spectral datasets, solar absorptance αsol and thermal emittance εth calculations. The comparison includes various benchtop spectrophotometers operating in the UV-VIS-NIR and Infrared spectral ranges as well as three commercial portable reflectometers/emissometers. A good agreement is found between the nine parties participating in this intercomparison campaign. The black coating αsol value is 96.6 ± 0.2%, while the solar selective coating αsol value is 94.5 ± 0.4%. For the thermal emittance, spectral data is concatenated and integrated from 0.3 to 16 μm. The black coating εth value calculated at 650 °C is 80.8 ± 3.8%, while the solar selective coating εth value calculated at 650 °C is 25.0 ± 0.5%

Physiological and Pathological Factors Affecting Drug Delivery to the Brain by Nanoparticles.

The prevalence of neurological/neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease is known to be increasing due to an aging population and is anticipated to further grow in the decades ahead. The treatment of brain diseases is challenging partly due to the inaccessibility of therapeutic agents to the brain. An increasingly important observation is that the physiology of the brain alters during many brain diseases, and aging adds even more to the complexity of the disease. There is a notion that the permeability of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) increases with aging or disease, however, the body has a defense mechanism that still retains the separation of the brain from harmful chemicals in the blood. This makes drug delivery to the diseased brain, even more challenging and complex task. Here, the physiological changes to the diseased brain and aged brain are covered in the context of drug delivery to the brain using nanoparticles. Also, recent and novel approaches are discussed for the delivery of therapeutic agents to the diseased brain using nanoparticle based or magnetic resonance imaging guided systems. Furthermore, the complement activation, toxicity, and immunogenicity of brain targeting nanoparticles as well as novel in vitro BBB models are discussed

Treatment of a multiple sclerosis animal model by a novel nanodrop formulation of a natural antioxidant

Orli Binyamin,1,* Liraz Larush,2,* Kati Frid,1 Guy Keller,1 Yael Friedman-Levi,1 Haim Ovadia,1 Oded Abramsky,1 Shlomo Magdassi,2 Ruth Gabizon1 1Department of Neurology, The Agnes Ginges Center of Human Neurogenetics, Hadassah University Hospital, 2Casali Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system and is associated with demyelination, neurodegeneration, and sensitivity to oxidative stress. In this work, we administered a nanodroplet formulation of pomegranate seed oil (PSO), denominated Nano-PSO, to mice induced for experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an established model of MS. PSO comprises high levels of punicic acid, a unique polyunsaturated fatty acid considered as one of the strongest natural antioxidants. We show here that while EAE-induced mice treated with natural PSO presented some reduction in disease burden, this beneficial effect increased significantly when EAE mice were treated with Nano-PSO of specific size nanodroplets at much lower concentrations of the oil. Pathological examinations revealed that Nano-PSO administration dramatically reduced demyelination and oxidation of lipids in the brains of the affected animals, which are hallmarks of this severe neurological disease. We propose that novel formulations of natural antioxidants such as Nano-PSO may be considered for the treatment of patients suffering from demyelinating diseases. On the mechanistic side, our results demonstrate that lipid oxidation may be a seminal feature in both demyelination and neurodegeneration. Keywords: nanodrops, PSO, EAE, oxidative stress, neurodegeneratio

The aging mouse microbiome has obesogenic characteristics.

Background During aging, there is a physiological decline, an increase of morbidity and mortality, and a natural change in the gut microbiome. In this study, we investigated the influence of the gut microbiome on different metabolic parameters in adult and aged mice. Methods Fecal and blood samples from adult (n = 42, 100-300 days) and aging (n = 32, 550-750 days) mice were collected. Microbiome analysis was done using QIIME2. Mouse weight and body composition were measured using NMR, and insulin and leptin levels in the blood were measured with Mouse Adipokine Magnetic Bead Panel kit. Fecal microbiota transplantation experiments from adult and aged mice into young germ-free mice were carried out in order to examine the effect of the gut microbiome of adult and aging mice on weight, body composition, insulin, and leptin. Results We demonstrate that the microbiomes from adult and aged mice are distinguishable. We also report changes in metabolic parameters as we observed significantly higher weight and fat mass and low lean mass in aged compared to adult mice along with high insulin and leptin levels in the blood. The transplanted gut microbiome from aged mice transferred part of the phenotypes seen in aged mice. Fat body mass and insulin levels were higher in the mice who received feces from aged mice than mice receiving feces from adult mice. In addition, they consumed more food and had a higher respiratory quotient compared to mice receiving adult feces. Conclusions We conclude that aged mice have a gut microbiota with obesogenic characteristics. In addition, the gut bacterial population itself is sufficient to induce some of the manifestations of obesity

Accelerated aging of absorber coatings for CSP receivers under real high solar flux: Evolution of their optical properties

The use of durable high solar absorptance receivers is a key element in a CSP plant project. In this article, different receiver materials are studied: four alloy substrates (T91, T22, VM12, Inconel 617) combined with four new absorber coatings, operable in solar towers with molten salts or steam as heat transfer fluids, and a classic Pyromark® paint considered as a reference. In order to test the durability of the coatings, 200 solar accelerated aging cycles were applied on the samples, using a concentrated solar facility (named SAAF). The cycles were defined so as to apply realistic high solar flux and temperature on the front side of the samples, and with high cooling and heating rates reproducing the fast variation of solar irradiation due to cloudy weather and subsequent thermal shocks. The optical characteristics of the coatings were measured at the beginning and at regular intervals during the aging procedure. Different behaviors of the coatings were observed depending on the substrate, before any aging cycle. After this first aging campaign, some evolutions were observed on the solar absorptance or thermal emittance, depending on the substrate and the coating. Nevertheless, the degradations noticed are not significant enough to conclude about the durability of the coatings