The oxygen-assisted transformation of propane to COx/H2 through combined oxidation and WGS reactions catalyzed by vanadium oxide-based catalysts

This paper reports about the gas-phase oxidation of propane catalyzed by bulk vanadium oxide and by alumina- and silica-supported vanadium oxide. The reaction was studied with the aim of finding conditions at which the formation of H2 and CO2 is preferred over that of CO, H2O and of products of alkane partial oxidation. It was found that with bulk V2O5 considerable amounts of H2 are produced above 400 8C, the temperature at which the limiting reactant, oxygen, is totally consumed. The formation of H2 derived from the combination of: (i) oxidation reactions, with generation of CO, CO2, oxygenates (mainly acetic acid), propylene and H2O, all occurring in the fraction of catalytic bed that operated in the presence of gas-phase oxygen, and (ii) WGS reaction, propane dehydrogenation and coke formation, that instead occurred in the fraction of bed operating under anaerobic conditions. This combination of different reactions in a single catalytic bed was possible because of the reduction of V2O5 to V2O3 at high temperature, in the absence of gas-phase oxygen. In fact, vanadium sesquioxide was found to be an effective catalyst for the WGS, while V2O5 was inactive in this reaction. The same combination of reactions was not possible when vanadium oxide was supported over high-surface area silica or alumina; this was attributed to the fact that in these catalysts vanadium was not reduced below the oxidation state V4+, even under reaction conditions leading to total oxygen conversion. In consequence, these catalysts produced less H2 than bulk vanadium oxide

Coding SNPs analysis highlights genetic relationships and evolution pattern in eggplant complexes

[EN] Brinjal (Solanum melongena), scarlet (S. aethiopicum) and gboma (S. macrocarpon) eggplants are three Old World domesticates. The genomic DNA of a collection of accessions belonging to the three cultivated species, along with a representation of various wild relatives, was characterized for the presence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using a genotype-by-sequencing approach. A total of 210 million useful reads were produced and were successfully aligned to the reference eggplant genome sequence. Out of the 75,399 polymorphic sites identified among the 76 entries in study, 12,859 were associated with coding sequence. A genetic relationships analysis, supported by the output of the FastSTRUCTURE software, identified four major sub-groups as present in the germplasm panel. The first of these clustered S. aethiopicum with its wild ancestor S. anguivi; the second, S. melongena, its wild progenitor S. insanum, and its relatives S. incanum, S. lichtensteinii and S. linneanum; the third, S. macrocarpon and its wild ancestor S. dasyphyllum; and the fourth, the New World species S. sisymbriifolium, S. torvum and S. elaeagnifolium. By applying a hierarchical FastSTRUCTURE analysis on partitioned data, it was also possible to resolve the ambiguous membership of the accessions of S. campylacanthum, S. violaceum, S. lidii, S. vespertilio and S. tomentsum, as well as to genetically differentiate the three species of New World Origin. A principal coordinates analysis performed both on the entire germplasm panel and also separately on the entries belonging to sub-groups revealed a clear separation among species, although not between each of the domesticates and their respective wild ancestors. There was no clear differentiation between either distinct cultivar groups or different geographical provenance. Adopting various approaches to analyze SNP variation provided support for interpretation of results. The genotyping-by-sequencing approach showed to be highly efficient for both quantifying genetic diversity and establishing genetic relationships among and within cultivated eggplants and their wild relatives. The relevance of these results to the evolution of eggplants, as well as to their genetic improvement, is discussed.This work has been funded in part by European Unions Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 677379 (G2P-SOL project: Linking genetic resources, genomes and phenotypes of Solanaceous crops) and by Spanish Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (grant AGL2015-64755-R from MINECO/FEDER). Funding has also been received from the initiative "Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change: Collecting, Protecting and Preparing Crop Wild Relatives", which is supported by the Government of Norway. This last project is managed by the Global Crop Diversity Trust with the Millennium Seed Bank of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and implemented in partnership with national and international gene banks and plant breeding institutes around the world. For further information see the project website:http://www.cwrdiversity.org/. Pietro Gramazio is grateful to Universitat Politecnica de Valencia for a pre-doctoral (Programa FPI de la UPV-Subprograma 1/2013 call) contract. Mariola Plazas is grateful to Spanish Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad for a post-doctoral grant within the Santiago Grisolia Programme (FCJI-2015-24835). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Acquadro, A.; Barchi, L.; Gramazio, P.; Portis, E.; Vilanova Navarro, S.; Comino, C.; Plazas Ávila, MDLO.... (2017). Coding SNPs analysis highlights genetic relationships and evolution pattern in eggplant complexes. PLoS ONE. 12(7). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0180774Se018077412