The novel method to reduce the silica content in lignin recovered from black liquor originating from rice straw

Difficulties in the production of lignin from rice straw because of high silica content in the recovered lignin reduce its recovery yield and applications as bio-fuel and aromatic chemicals. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop a novel method to reduce the silica content in lignin from rice straw more effectively and selectively. The method is established by monitoring the precipitation behavior as well as the chemical structure of precipitate by single-stage acidification at different pH values of black liquor collected from the alkaline treatment of rice straw. The result illustrates the significant influence of pH on the physical and chemical properties of the precipitate and the supernatant. The simple two-step acidification of the black liquor at pilot-scale by sulfuric acid 20w/v% is applied to recover lignin at pH 9 and pH 3 and gives a percentage of silica removal as high as 94.38%. Following the developed process, the high-quality lignin could be produced from abundant rice straw at the industrial-scale

Influence of Hydrodynamic Interactions on Mechanical Unfolding of Proteins

We incorporate hydrodynamic interactions in a structure-based model of ubiquitin and demonstrate that the hydrodynamic coupling may reduce the peak force when stretching the protein at constant speed, especially at larger speeds. Hydrodynamic interactions are also shown to facilitate unfolding at constant force and inhibit stretching by fluid flows.Comment: to be published in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte

Restructuring of colloidal aggregates in shear flow: Coupling interparticle contact models with Stokesian dynamics

A method to couple interparticle contact models with Stokesian dynamics (SD) is introduced to simulate colloidal aggregates under flow conditions. The contact model mimics both the elastic and plastic behavior of the cohesive connections between particles within clusters. Owing to this, clusters can maintain their structures under low stress while restructuring or even breakage may occur under sufficiently high stress conditions. SD is an efficient method to deal with the long-ranged and many-body nature of hydrodynamic interactions for low Reynolds number flows. By using such a coupled model, the restructuring of colloidal aggregates under stepwise increasing shear flows was studied. Irreversible compaction occurs due to the increase of hydrodynamic stress on clusters. Results show that the greater part of the fractal clusters are compacted to rod-shaped packed structures, while the others show isotropic compaction.Comment: A simulation movie be found at http://www-levich.engr.ccny.cuny.edu/~seto/sites/colloidal_aggregates_shearflow.htm

Nonlinear rheology of colloidal dispersions

Colloidal dispersions are commonly encountered in everyday life and represent an important class of complex fluid. Of particular significance for many commercial products and industrial processes is the ability to control and manipulate the macroscopic flow response of a dispersion by tuning the microscopic interactions between the constituents. An important step towards attaining this goal is the development of robust theoretical methods for predicting from first-principles the rheology and nonequilibrium microstructure of well defined model systems subject to external flow. In this review we give an overview of some promising theoretical approaches and the phenomena they seek to describe, focusing, for simplicity, on systems for which the colloidal particles interact via strongly repulsive, spherically symmetric interactions. In presenting the various theories, we will consider first low volume fraction systems, for which a number of exact results may be derived, before moving on to consider the intermediate and high volume fraction states which present both the most interesting physics and the most demanding technical challenges. In the high volume fraction regime particular emphasis will be given to the rheology of dynamically arrested states.Comment: Review articl

Hydrodynamic interactions in colloidal ferrofluids: A lattice Boltzmann study

We use lattice Boltzmann simulations, in conjunction with Ewald summation methods, to investigate the role of hydrodynamic interactions in colloidal suspensions of dipolar particles, such as ferrofluids. Our work addresses volume fractions $\phi$ of up to 0.20 and dimensionless dipolar interaction parameters $\lambda$ of up to 8. We compare quantitatively with Brownian dynamics simulations, in which many-body hydrodynamic interactions are absent. Monte Carlo data are also used to check the accuracy of static properties measured with the lattice Boltzmann technique. At equilibrium, hydrodynamic interactions slow down both the long-time and the short-time decays of the intermediate scattering function $S(q,t)$, for wavevectors close to the peak of the static structure factor $S(q)$, by a factor of roughly two. The long-time slowing is diminished at high interaction strengths whereas the short-time slowing (quantified via the hydrodynamic factor $H(q)$) is less affected by the dipolar interactions, despite their strong effect on the pair distribution function arising from cluster formation. Cluster formation is also studied in transient data following a quench from $\lambda = 0$; hydrodynamic interactions slow the formation rate, again by a factor of roughly two

Glycan shifting on hepatitis C virus (HCV) E2 glycoprotein is a mechanism for escape from broadly neutralizing antibodies

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major cause of liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. Glycan shielding has been proposed to be a mechanism by which HCV masks broadly neutralizing epitopes on its viral glycoproteins. However, the role of altered glycosylation in HCV resistance to broadly neutralizing antibodies is not fully understood. Here, we have generated potent HCV neutralizing antibodies hu5B3.v3 and MRCT10.v362 that, similar to the previously described AP33 and HCV1, bind to a highly conserved linear epitope on E2. We utilize a combination of in vitro resistance selections using the cell culture infectious HCV and structural analyses to identify mechanisms of HCV resistance to hu5B3.v3 and MRCT10.v362. Ultra deep sequencing from in vitro HCV resistance selection studies identified resistance mutations at asparagine N417 (N417S, N417T and N417G) as early as 5 days post treatment. Comparison of the glycosylation status of soluble versions of the E2 glycoprotein containing the respective resistance mutations revealed a glycosylation shift from N417 to N415 in the N417S and N417T E2 proteins. The N417G E2 variant was glycosylated neither at residue 415 nor at residue 417 and remained sensitive to MRCT10.v362. Structural analyses of the E2 epitope bound to hu5B3.v3 Fab and MRCT10.v362 Fab using X-ray crystallography confirmed that residue N415 is buried within the antibody–peptide interface. Thus, in addition to previously described mutations at N415 that abrogate the β-hairpin structure of this E2 linear epitope, we identify a second escape mechanism, termed glycan shifting, that decreases the efficacy of broadly neutralizing HCV antibodies

Redox proteomics of the inflammatory secretome identifies a common set of redoxins and other glutathionylated proteins released in inflammation, influenza virus infection and oxidative stress

Protein cysteines can form transient disulfides with glutathione (GSH), resulting in the production of glutathionylated proteins, and this process is regarded as a mechanism by which the redox state of the cell can regulate protein function. Most studies on redox regulation of immunity have focused on intracellular proteins. In this study we have used redox proteomics to identify those proteins released in glutathionylated form by macrophages stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) after pre-loading the cells with biotinylated GSH. Of the several proteins identified in the redox secretome, we have selected a number for validation. Proteomic analysis indicated that LPS stimulated the release of peroxiredoxin (PRDX) 1, PRDX2, vimentin (VIM), profilin1 (PFN1) and thioredoxin 1 (TXN1). For PRDX1 and TXN1, we were able to confirm that the released protein is glutathionylated. PRDX1, PRDX2 and TXN1 were also released by the human pulmonary epithelial cell line, A549, infected with influenza virus. The release of the proteins identified was inhibited by the anti-inflammatory glucocorticoid, dexamethasone (DEX), which also inhibited tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α release, and by thiol antioxidants (N-butanoyl GSH derivative, GSH-C4, and N-acetylcysteine (NAC), which did not affect TNF-α production. The proteins identified could be useful as biomarkers of oxidative stress associated with inflammation, and further studies will be required to investigate if the extracellular forms of these proteins has immunoregulatory functions

Enhanced Self Assembled Monolayer Surface Coverage by ALD NiO in p i n Perovskite Solar Cells

Metal halide perovskites have attracted tremendous attention due to their excellent electronic properties. Recent advancements in device performance and stability of perovskite solar cells PSCs have been achieved with the application of self assembled monolayers SAMs , serving as stand alone hole transport layers in the p i n architecture. Specifically, phosphonic acid SAMs, directly functionalizing indium tin oxide ITO , are presently adopted for highly efficient devices. Despite their successes, so far, little is known about the surface coverage of SAMs on ITO used in PSCs application, which can affect the device performance, as non covered areas can result in shunting or low open circuit voltage. In this study, we investigate the surface coverage of SAMs on ITO and observe that the SAM of MeO 2PACz [2 3,6 dimethoxy 9H carbazol 9 yl ethyl]phosphonic acid inhomogeneously covers the ITO substrate. Instead, when adopting an intermediate layer of NiO between ITO and the SAM, the homogeneity, and hence the surface coverage of the SAM, improve. In this work, NiO is processed by plasma assisted atomic layer deposition ALD with Ni MeCp 2 as the precursor and O2 plasma as the co reactant. Specifically, the presence of ALD NiO leads to a homogeneous distribution of SAM molecules on the metal oxide area, accompanied by a high shunt resistance in the devices with respect to those with SAM directly processed on ITO. At the same time, the SAM is key to the improvement of the open circuit voltage of NiO MeO 2PACz devices compared to those with NiO alone. Thus, the combination of NiO and SAM results in a narrower distribution of device performance reaching a more than 20 efficient champion device. The enhancement of SAM coverage in the presence of NiO is corroborated by several characterization techniques including advanced imaging by transmission electron microscopy TEM , elemental composition quantification by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry RBS , and conductive atomic force microscopy c AFM mapping. We believe this finding will further promote the usage of phosphonic acid based SAM molecules in perovskite P

Application of mixed formulations of quasi-reversibility to solve ill-posed problems for heat and wave equations: the 1d case

International audienceIn this paper we address some ill-posed problems involving the heat or the wave equation in one dimension, in particular the backward heat equation and the heat/wave equation with lateral Cauchy data. The main objective is to introduce some variational mixed formulations of quasi-reversibility which enable us to solve these ill-posed problems by using some classical La-grange finite elements. The inverse obstacle problems with initial condition and lateral Cauchy data for heat/wave equation are also considered, by using an elementary level set method combined with the quasi-reversibility method. Some numerical experiments are presented to illustrate the feasibility for our strategy in all those situations. 1. Introduction. The method of quasi-reversibility has now a quite long history since the pioneering book of Latt es and Lions in 1967 [1]. The original idea of these authors was, starting from an ill-posed problem which satisfies the uniqueness property, to introduce a perturbation of such problem involving a small positive parameter ε. This perturbation has essentially two effects. Firstly the perturbation transforms the initial ill-posed problem into a well-posed one for any ε, secondly the solution to such problem converges to the solution (if it exists) to the initial ill-posed problem when ε tends to 0. Generally, the ill-posedness in the initial problem is due to unsuitable boundary conditions. As typical examples of linear ill-posed problems one may think of the backward heat equation, that is the initial condition is replaced by a final condition, or the heat or wave equations with lateral Cauchy data, that is the usual Dirichlet or Neumann boundary condition on the boundary of the domain is replaced by a pair of Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions on the same subpart of the boundary, no data being prescribed on the complementary part of the boundary

First Observation of Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission in a Free-Electron Laser at 109 nm Wavelength

We present the first observation of Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission (SASE) in a free-electron laser (FEL) in the Vacuum Ultraviolet regime at 109 nm wavelength (11 eV). The observed free-electron laser gain (approx. 3000) and the radiation characteristics, such as dependency on bunch charge, angular distribution, spectral width and intensity fluctuations all corroborate the existing models for SASE FELs.Comment: 6 pages including 6 figures; e-mail: [email protected]