Biomass in the manufacture of industrial products—the use of proteins and amino acids

The depletion in fossil feedstocks, increasing oil prices, and the ecological problems associated with CO2 emissions are forcing the development of alternative resources for energy, transport fuels, and chemicals: the replacement of fossil resources with CO2 neutral biomass. Allied with this, the conversion of crude oil products utilizes primary products (ethylene, etc.) and their conversion to either materials or (functional) chemicals with the aid of co-reagents such as ammonia and various process steps to introduce functionalities such as -NH2 into the simple structures of the primary products. Conversely, many products found in biomass often contain functionalities. Therefore, it is attractive to exploit this to bypass the use, and preparation of, co-reagents as well as eliminating various process steps by utilizing suitable biomass-based precursors for the production of chemicals. It is the aim of this mini-review to describe the scope of the possibilities to generate current functionalized chemical materials using amino acids from biomass instead of fossil resources, thereby taking advantage of the biomass structure in a more efficient way than solely utilizing biomass for the production of fuels or electricity

Detection, with the dye phloxine B, of yeast mutants unable to utilize nitrogenous substances as the sole nitrogen source.

Yeast mutants unable to degrade certain nitrogen compounds produce characteristic small red colonies on an agar medium containing the red dye phloxine B, galactose, the test nitrogen compound, and a small amount of ammonium chloride

Repair of a cosmetic defect of the lower leg with a myocutaneous free flap

CITATION: Lamont, A., Malherbe, W. D. F. & Middelhoven, J. 1982. Repair of a cosmetic defect of the lower leg with a myocutaneous free flap. South African Medical Journal, 62:642-644.The original publication is available at http://www.samj.org.zaThe use of free-tissue transfers by modern techniques of microvascular surgery is not new, and the many possibilities in reconstructive surgery are well documented. A case in which a disfiguring cosmetic defect of the lower leg was repaired in one stage with a latissimus dorsi myocutaneous free flap is described.Publisher’s versio