MANAGEMENT OF BLOWDOWN FROM CLOSED LOOP COOLING SYSTEMS USING IMPAIRED WATERS

Management of cooling tower blowdown is one of the key components in cooling tower operation and usually requires treatment to meet local, state or federal discharge regulations. Typical options for power plants blowdown management include discharge to surface waters or wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and zero liquid discharge (ZLD). Compared to other options, ZLD is preferred as it helps to decrease environmental impact of power generation, especially for power plants using reclaimed water for their recirculating cooling systems. ZLD typically includes one or more of the following advanced treatment technologies: (1) Membrane filtration; (2) Electrodialysis (ED); and (3) Evaporation.The objectives of cooling tower blowdown treatment is to recover water with the quality equal to or better than the makeup water so that it can be returned to the cooling loop. In this study, membrane filtration was evaluated as a possible treatment option for blowdown from cooling towers operated using secondary treated municipal wastewater ("MWW blowdown") and acid mine drainage ("AMD blowdown") as make up water.Treatability studies with microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membranes, were carried out for the MWW and AMD blowdown in a bench-scale membrane filtration unit. It was observed that the nanofiltration with BW30 membrane was effective in reducing the concentration of dissolved species in MWW blowdown: TDS and sulfate decreased from 3,060 and 326 mg/L to 379 and 31 mg/L, respectively. Sequential filtration by NF90 and BW30 membranes was required to reduce the TDS and sulfate in AMD blowdown from 5,810 and 3,079 mg/L to 192 and 107 mg/L, respectively. Preliminary studies also indicated that a trans-membrane pressure of 135 psi is sufficient to achieve acceptable permeate flux. Lowering pH of the feed water from 7.4 to 6.0 resulted in higher permeate flux, while increasing it to 9.0 had an adverse impact on permeate flux.Laboratory tests performed in this study indicate that nanofiltration could be a viable alternative for the treatment of blowdown from cooling tower systems using impaired waters (i.e., secondary treated municipal wastewater or passively treated acid mine drainage)

SENSING SOLUBLE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS WITH MICROBIAL FUEL CELLS

Water quality is central to the social, economic, and ecological well-beings, so it becomes vital to monitor aquatic ecosystems. In recent years, multifarious biosensors have demonstrated great potential to support environmental analysis and water quality monitoring. As one type of biosensors, microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been investigated and shown good operational capabilities. However, the response patterns during MFC-based biosensing process have not been characterized. This study explored the start-up, operation, and data analysis associated with an air-cathode MFC system. Electrical signals were generated in response to the injections of synthetic water and field samples. The highest coefficient of determination in laboratory testing was produced when the peak area (PA) was correlated with influent COD concentrations, which is the approach that has not been previously reported. However, the peaks obtained in field testing of the MFC were smaller in size and with longer cycle time, and the samples with lower COD produced smaller peak areas (PAs) and peak heights (PHs). Higher coefficients of determination (0.99 for synthetic water and 0.95 for field samples) were obtained the artificial neural network (ANN) model was used for COD determination. Furthermore, the use of ANN permitted accurate identification of acetate, butyrate, glucose and corn starch. This study also revealed that addition of BES (2-bromoethane sulfonic acid) increased the magnitude of peak area (PA) and columbic efficiency (CE) by inhibiting the activity of methanogens when glucose was used as the primary substrate. A revised ANN was utilized to interpret the low concentration peaks and the result showed that ANN processing expanded detection limits (the lowest linear detectable COD) of MFC biosensor from 20mg/l to a below 5mg /l. Another properly-trained mathematical model, time series analysis (TSA, at f=0.2) successfully predicted the temporal current trends in properly functioning MFCs, and in a device that was gradually failing. This study was the first MFC biosensing effort to propose peak area as an appropriate response metric and the first to integrate ANNs and TSA model into MFC-based biosensing. This study is expected to provide a template for future MFC-based biosensing efforts

Prenatal infection promotes olanzapine-induced obesity in rats: implications for antipsychotic-induced obesity in schizophrenia

Abstract of a poster presentation

The college students' response to customized information services based on Library2.0 technologies at universities in Nanjing

Through a questionnaire survey of students' response from 6 universities in Nanjing, this paper aims to determine their varying degrees of satisfaction about the customized information service based on Library2.0 technologies. In so doing, the authors carefully examined the data collected from the returned questionnaires about such key issues as the students' perceptions about the customized information service via a Library 2.0 platform, self-initiated use experience of such a mechanism, their achieved information searching results&nbsp; vis-&agrave;-vis their expectations, etc. In addition, the authors also made a comparative study between information providers (i.e. librarians) and information consumers (i.e. students) at Chinese and American academic libraries.</p

Survey and alignment of the synchrotron SIS18

Mesenteric fat belongs to visceral fat. An increased deposition of mesenteric fat contributes to obesity associated complications such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. We have investigated the therapeutic effects of bardoxolone methyl (BARD) on mesenteric adipose tissue of mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD). Male C57BL/6J mice were administered oral BARD during HFD feeding (HFD/BARD), only fed a high-fat diet (HFD), or fed low-fat diet (LFD) for 21 weeks. Histology and immunohistochemistry were used to analyse mesenteric morphology and macrophages, while Western blot was used to assess the expression of inflammatory, oxidative stress, and energy expenditure proteins. Supplementation of drinking water with BARD prevented mesenteric fat deposition, as determined by a reduction in large adipocytes. BARD prevented inflammation as there were fewer inflammatory macrophages and reduced proinflammatory cytokines (interleukin-1 beta and tumour necrosis factor alpha). BARD reduced the activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and Akt, suggesting an antioxidative stress effect. BARD upregulates energy expenditure proteins, judged by the increased activity of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and increased peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha (PGC-1α), and uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) proteins. Overall, BARD induces preventive effect in HFD mice through regulation of mesenteric adipose tissue

Bardoxolone methyl prevents the development and progression of cardiac and renal pathophysiologies in mice fed a high-fat diet

Obesity caused by the consumption of a high-fat (HF) diet is a major risk factor for the development of associated complications, such as heart and kidney failure. A semi-synthetic triterpenoid, bardoxolone methyl (BM) was administrated to mice fed a HF diet for 21 weeks to determine if it would prevent the development of obesity-associated cardiac and renal pathophysiologies. Twelve week old male C57BL/6J mice were fed a lab chow (LC), HF (40% fat), or a HF diet supplemented with 10 mg/kg/day BM in drinking water. After 21 weeks, the left ventricles of hearts and cortex of kidneys of mice were collected for analysis. Histological analysis revealed that BM prevented HF diet-induced development of structural changes in the heart and kidneys. BM prevented HF diet-induced decreases in myocyte number in cardiac tissue, although this treatment also elevated cardiac endothelin signalling molecules. In the kidneys, BM administration prevented HF diet-induced renal corpuscle hypertrophy and attenuated endothelin signalling. Furthermore, in both the hearts and kidneys of mice fed a HF diet, BM administration prevented HF diet-induced increases in fat accumulation, macrophage infiltration and tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) gene expression. These findings suggest that BM prevents HF diet-induced developments of cardiac and renal pathophysiologies in mice fed a chronic HF diet by preventing inflammation. Moreover, these results suggest that BM has the potential as a therapeutic for preventing obesity-induced cardiac and renal pathophysiologies

Bardoxolone methyl: a potential therapeutic for the prevention of anti-psychotic drug-induced obesity?

Abstract of a presentation

Antigen-Sparing and Enhanced Efficacy of Multivalent Vaccines Adjuvanted with Immunopotentiators in Chickens

We previously described that immunopotentiators, CVCVA5, increased the efficacy of H5 and H9 subtype avian influenza vaccines in chickens, ducks, and geese. In this study, we further investigated the effects of the CVCVA5 for improving the efficacy of other univalent or multivalent inactivated vaccines. The immune response administrated with half-dose of monovalent vaccine plus CVCVA5 were higher than those of one dose of monovalent vaccine without immunopotentiators as measured by levels of antibodies from serum, tears and bronchoalveolar lavage fluids, and cytokines of IFNγ and IL-4 from serum. Vaccines included the univalent vaccine of Newcastle Disease virus (ND), Egg Drop Syndrome virus (EDS), Infectious Bronchitis virus (IB), and Infectious Bursal Disease virus (IBD). The CVCVA5 also improved the immune response of both ND and IBD vaccines with less dosage. The sterile protective immunity was monitored with one- or a half-dose of adjuvanted ND vaccine or one dose of adjuvanted IBD vaccine, respectively. The improved immune efficacy was observed in a half-dose of adjuvanted bivalent vaccines compared to one dose of vaccines without CVCVA5 as measured by the antibody levels, including bivalent vaccine of ND-H9, ND-IB, and ND-IBD. The CVCVA5 also boosted the immune efficacy of the tetravalent vaccine (ND-IB-EDS-H9). A half-dose of adjuvanted commercial vaccine or 75% antigen-sparing adjuvanted vaccine elicited similar antibody levels to those of one dose non-adjuvanted commercial vaccines. The CVCVA5 improved the effect of a booster vaccination as measured by the antibody levels against H5 or H9 virus antigens, in which chickens primed with the adjuvanted ND-IB vaccines given a booster with H5–H9 bivalent vaccines without CVCVA5 using 5-day intervals. The inflammatory response may contribute to these additional effects by increasing the levels of IFNγ and IL-4 after the injection of the adjuvanted ND-IB vaccines. Results indicated that the CVCVA5 improved the serum and mucosal antibody levels, cytokine levels of the chickens given the univalent vaccine, and also improved serum antibody titers in bivalent and tetravalent vaccines. This has a potential as an improve vaccine

Curdlan Prevents the Cognitive Deficits Induced by a High-Fat Diet in Mice via the Gut-Brain Axis

A high-fat (HF) diet is a major predisposing factor of neuroinflammation and cognitive deficits. Recently, changes in the gut microbiota have been associated with neuroinflammation and cognitive impairment, through the gut-brain axis. Curdlan, a bacterial polysaccharide widely used as food additive, has the potential to alter the composition of the microbiota and improve the gut-brain axis. However, the effects of curdlan against HF diet-induced neuroinflammation and cognitive decline have not been investigated. We aimed to evaluate the neuroprotective effect and mechanism of dietary curdlan supplementation against the obesity-associated cognitive decline observed in mice fed a HF diet. C57Bl/6J male mice were fed with either a control, HF, or HF with curdlan supplementation diets for 7 days (acute) or 15 weeks (chronic). We found that acute curdlan supplementation prevented the gut microbial composition shift induced by HF diet. Chronic curdlan supplementation prevented cognitive declines induced by HF diet. In addition, curdlan protected against the HF diet-induced abnormities in colonic permeability, hyperendotoxemia, and colonic inflammation. Furthermore, in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus, curdlan mitigated microgliosis, neuroinflammation, and synaptic impairments induced by a HF diet. Thus, curdlan-as a food additive and prebiotic-can prevent cognitive deficits induced by HF diet via the colon-brain axis