Retooling the ethanol industry : thermophilic, anaerobic digestion of thin stillage for methane production and pollution prevention

Anaerobic digestion of thin stillage from a corn ethanol plant was tested at thermophilic temperature with a completely stirred tank reactor. Loading at 30, 20, 15, and 12 day hydraulic retention times (HRT) was tested. Ultrasonic pretreatment was used for one digester with another as a control. The influent thin stillage was a concentrated waste stream with 100 g/L total chemical oxygen demand and 60 g/L volatile solids (VS) typical. Significant reduction of VS was achieved with a maximum reduction (89.8%) at the 20 day HRT. Methane yield was also high with a typical yield of 0.6-0.7 L-CH₄/g-VS[subscript removed] during steady state operation. Effluent VFAs were low for a thermophilic anaerobic digester with less than 200 mg/L as acetic acid for the 20 and 30 day HRTs. The influent thin stillage had a low pH (~4) and zero alkalinity, but biological regulation of alkalinity allowed for operation without alkalinity addition. Steady state operation was achieved at 30, 20, and 15 day HRTs, and digester failure occurred at a 12 day HRT. At the 20 day HRT, a sustained shock load with a 20% organic increase was easily handled by the system. Ultrasonic pretreatment did not significantly improve the operation of the system and is not recommended for future use with anaerobic digestion of thin stillage. The high VS reduction could improve water recycling within the ethanol production process. Substantial energy is produced from the system in the form of methane gas, and natural gas displacement is estimated at 43-59% for a dry grind ethanol plant. Energy production value is estimated a

Sustainably Ever After: Extending the Life of Bridal Gowns & Eliminating Fabric Waste through Zero Waste Pattern Cutting & Modular Design

There are two realities when it comes to the white wedding gown. The first reality is that it is a powerful garment saturated with perceived tradition and symbolism. In this, how the bride looks is pivotal; the recent media frenzy over the style of Kate Middleton’s wedding gown in 2011 indicates that design is critical to the gown’s cultural value. The second reality is the negative impact of the fashion industry

Pathways for the OH + Cl<inf>2</inf> → HOCl + Cl and HOCl + Cl → HCl + ClO Reactions

High level coupled-cluster theory, with spin-orbit coupling evaluated via the Breit-Pauli operator in the interacting-states approach, is used to investigate the OH radical reaction with Cl2 and the subsequent reaction HOCl + Cl. The entrance complex, transition state, and exit complex for both reactions have been determined using the CCSD(T) method with correlation consistent basis sets up to cc-pV6Z. Also reported are CCSDT computations. The OH + Cl2 reaction is predicted to be endothermic by 2.2 kcal/mol, compared to the best experiments, 2.0 kcal/mol. The above theoretical results include zero-point vibrational energy corrections and spin-orbit contributions. The activation energy (Ea) of the OH + Cl2 reaction predicted here, 2.3 kcal/mol, could be as much as 1 kcal/mol too high, but it falls among the four experimental Ea values, which span the range 1.1-2.5 kcal/mol. The exothermicity of the second reaction HOCl + Cl → HCl + ClO is 8.4 kcal/mol, compared to experiment 8.7 kcal/mol. The activation energy for latter reaction is unknown experimentally, but predicted here to be large, 11.5 kcal/mol. There are currently no experiments relevant to the theoretical entrance and exit complexes predicted here. © 2015 American Chemical Society

To defend or to attack? Antagonistic interactions between Serratia plymuthica and fungal plant pathogens, a species-specific volatile dialogue

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are involved in microbial interspecies communication and in the mode of action of various antagonistic interactions. They are important for balancing host-microbe interactions and provide the basis for developing biological control strategies to control plant pathogens. We studied the interactions between the bacterial antagonist Serratia plymuthica HRO-C48 and three fungal plant pathogens Rhizoctonia solani, Leptosphaeria maculans and Verticillium longisporum. Significant differences in fungal growth inhibition by the Serratia-emitted VOCs in pairwise dual culture assays and changes in the transcriptome of the bacterium and in the volatilomes of both interacting partners were observed. Even though the rate of fungal growth inhibition by Serratia was variable, the confrontation of the bacterium with the VOCs of all three fungi changed the levels of expression of the genes involved in stress response, biofilm formation, and the production of antimicrobial VOCs. Pairwise interacting microorganisms switched between defense (downregulation of gene expression) and attack (upregulation of gene expression and metabolism followed by growth inhibition of the interacting partner) modes, subject to the combinations of microorganisms that were interacting. In the attack mode HRO-C48 significantly inhibited the growth of R. solani while simultaneously boosting its own metabolism; by contrast, its metabolism was downregulated when HRO-C48 went into a defense mode that was induced by the L. maculans and V. longisporum VOCs. L. maculans growth was slightly reduced by the one bacterial VOC methyl acetate that induced a strong downregulation of expression of genes involved in almost all metabolic functions in S. plymuthica. Similarly, the interaction between S. plymuthica and V. longisporum resulted in an insignificant growth reduction of the fungus and repressed the rate of bacterial metabolism on the transcriptional level, accompanied by an intense volatile dialogue. Overall, our results indicate that VOCs substantially contribute to the highly break species-specific interactions between pathogens and their natural antagonists and thus deserving of increased consideration for pathogen control

ImmPort, toward repurposing of open access immunological assay data for translational and clinical research

Immunology researchers are beginning to explore the possibilities of reproducibility, reuse and secondary analyses of immunology data. Open-access datasets are being applied in the validation of the methods used in the original studies, leveraging studies for meta-analysis, or generating new hypotheses. To promote these goals, the ImmPort data repository was created for the broader research community to explore the wide spectrum of clinical and basic research data and associated findings. The ImmPort ecosystem consists of four components–Private Data, Shared Data, Data Analysis, and Resources—for data archiving, dissemination, analyses, and reuse. To date, more than 300 studies have been made freely available through the ImmPort Shared Data portal , which allows research data to be repurposed to accelerate the translation of new insights into discoveries