51 research outputs found
Dip-coating of suspensions
Withdrawing a plate from a suspension leads to the entrainment of a coating
layer of fluid and particles on the solid surface. In this article, we study
the Landau-Levich problem in the case of a suspension of non-Brownian particles
at moderate volume fraction . We observe different regimes
depending on the withdrawal velocity , the volume fraction of the suspension
, and the diameter of the particles . Our results exhibit three
coating regimes. (i) At small enough capillary number , no particles are
entrained, and only a liquid film coats the plate. (ii) At large capillary
number, we observe that the thickness of the entrained film of suspension is
captured by the Landau-Levich law using the effective viscosity of the
suspension . (iii) At intermediate capillary numbers, the situation
becomes more complicated with a heterogeneous coating on the substrate. We
rationalize our experimental findings by providing the domain of existence of
these three regimes as a function of the fluid and particles properties
Damping of liquid sloshing by foams
When a container is set in motion, the free surface of the liquid starts to
oscillate or slosh. Such effects can be observed when a glass of water is
handled carelessly and the fluid sloshes or even spills over the rims of the
container. However, beer does not slosh as readily as water, which suggests
that foam could be used to damp sloshing. In this work, we study experimentally
the effect on sloshing of a liquid foam placed on top of a liquid bath. We
generate a monodisperse two-dimensional liquid foam in a rectangular container
and track the motion of the foam. The influence of the foam on the sloshing
dynamics is experimentally characterized: only a few layers of bubbles are
sufficient to significantly damp the oscillations. We rationalize our
experimental findings with a model that describes the foam contribution to the
damping coefficient through viscous dissipation on the walls of the container.
Then we extend our study to confined three-dimensional liquid foam and observe
that the behavior of 2D and confined 3D systems are very similar. Thus we
conclude that only the bubbles close to the walls have a significant impact on
the dissipation of energy. The possibility to damp liquid sloshing using foam
is promising in numerous industrial applications such as the transport of
liquefied gas in tankers or for propellants in rocket engines.Comment: 17 pages, accepted in Physics of Fluid
Mechanical tuning of the evaporation rate of liquid on crossed fibers
We investigate experimentally the drying of a small volume of perfectly
wetting liquid on two crossed fibers. We characterize the drying dynamics for
the three liquid morphologies that are encountered in this geometry: drop,
column and a mixed morphology, in which a drop and a column coexist. For each
morphology, we rationalize our findings with theoretical models that capture
the drying kinetics. We find that the evaporation rate depends significantly on
the liquid morphology and that the drying of liquid column is faster than the
evaporation of the drop and the mixed morphology for a given liquid volume.
Finally, we illustrate that shearing a network of fibers reduces the angle
between them, changes the morphology towards the column state, and so enhances
the drying rate of a volatile liquid deposited on it
Transmission electron microscopic observations of nanobubbles and their capture of impurities in wastewater
Unique properties of micro- and nanobubbles (MNBs), such as a high adsorption of impurities on their surface, are difficult to verify because MNBs are too small to observe directly. We thus used a transmission electron microscope (TEM) with the freeze-fractured replica method to observe oxygen (O2) MNBs in solutions. MNBs in pure water and in 1% NaCl solutions were spherical or oval. Their size distribution estimated from TEM images close to that of the original solution is measured by light-scattered methods. When we applied this technique to the observation of O2 MNBs formed in the wastewater of a sewage plant, we found the characteristic features of spherical MNBs that adsorbed surrounding impurity particles on their surface
Transcriptome and Proteome Exploration to Model Translation Efficiency and Protein Stability in Lactococcus lactis
This genome-scale study analysed the various parameters influencing protein levels in cells. To achieve this goal, the model bacterium Lactococcus lactis was grown at steady state in continuous cultures at different growth rates, and proteomic and transcriptomic data were thoroughly compared. Ratios of mRNA to protein were highly variable among proteins but also, for a given gene, between the different growth conditions. The modeling of cellular processes combined with a data fitting modeling approach allowed both translation efficiencies and degradation rates to be estimated for each protein in each growth condition. Estimated translational efficiencies and degradation rates strongly differed between proteins and were tested for their biological significance through statistical correlations with relevant parameters such as codon or amino acid bias. These efficiencies and degradation rates were not constant in all growth conditions and were inversely proportional to the growth rate, indicating a more efficient translation at low growth rate but an antagonistic higher rate of protein degradation. Estimated protein median half-lives ranged from 23 to 224 min, underlying the importance of protein degradation notably at low growth rates. The regulation of intracellular protein level was analysed through regulatory coefficient calculations, revealing a complex control depending on protein and growth conditions. The modeling approach enabled translational efficiencies and protein degradation rates to be estimated, two biological parameters extremely difficult to determine experimentally and generally lacking in bacteria. This method is generic and can now be extended to other environments and/or other micro-organisms
The Response of Lactococcus lactis to Membrane Protein Production
Background: The biogenesis of membrane proteins is more complex than that of water-soluble proteins, and recombinant expression of membrane proteins in functional form and in amounts high enough for structural and functional studies is often problematic. To better engineer cells towards efficient protein production, we set out to understand and compare the cellular consequences of the overproduction of both classes of proteins in Lactococcus lactis, employing a combined proteomics and transcriptomics approach.
Methodology and Findings: Highly overproduced and poorly expressed membrane proteins both resulted in severe growth defects, whereas amplified levels of a soluble substrate receptor had no effect. In addition, membrane protein overproduction evoked a general stress response (upregulation of various chaperones and proteases), which is probably due to accumulation of misfolded protein. Notably, upon the expression of membrane proteins a cell envelope stress response, controlled by the two-component regulatory CesSR system, was observed.
Conclusions: The physiological response of L. lactis to the overproduction of several membrane proteins was determined and compared to that of a soluble protein, thus offering better understanding of the bottlenecks related to membrane protein production and valuable knowledge for subsequent strain engineering.
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