111 research outputs found
Efficient depolymerization of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethylene furanoate by engineered PET hydrolase Cut190
The enzymatic recycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) can be a promising approach to tackle the problem of plastic waste. The thermostability and activity of PET-hydrolyzing enzymes are still insufficient for practical application. Pretreatment of PET waste is needed for bio-recycling. Here, we analyzed the degradation of PET films, packages, and bottles using the newly engineered cutinase Cut190. Using gel permeation chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography, the degradation of PET films by the Cut190 variant was shown to proceed via a repeating two-step hydrolysis process; initial endo-type scission of a surface polymer chain, followed by exo-type hydrolysis to produce mono/bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate and terephthalate from the ends of fragmented polymer molecules. Amorphous PET powders were degraded more than twofold higher than amorphous PET film with the same weight. Moreover, homogenization of post-consumer PET products, such as packages and bottles, increased their degradability, indicating the importance of surface area for the enzymatic hydrolysis of PET. In addition, it was required to maintain an alkaline pH to enable continuous enzymatic hydrolysis, by increasing the buffer concentration (HEPES, pH 9.0) depending on the level of the acidic products formed. The cationic surfactant dodecyltrimethylammonium chloride promoted PET degradation via adsorption on the PET surface and binding to the anionic surface of the Cut190 variant. The Cut190 variant also hydrolyzed polyethylene furanoate. Using the best performing Cut190 variant (L136F/Q138A/S226P/R228S/D250C-E296C/Q123H/N202H/K305del/L306del/N307del) and amorphous PET powders, more than 90 mM degradation products were obtained in 3 days and approximately 80 mM in 1 day
A Planetary Microlensing Event with an Unusually Red Source Star: MOA-2011-BLG-291
We present the analysis of planetary microlensing event MOA-2011-BLG-291,
which has a mass ratio of and a source star that
is redder (or brighter) than the bulge main sequence. This event is located at
a low Galactic latitude in the survey area that is currently planned for NASA's
WFIRST exoplanet microlensing survey. This unusual color for a microlensed
source star implies that we cannot assume that the source star is in the
Galactic bulge. The favored interpretation is that the source star is a lower
main sequence star at a distance of kpc in the Galactic disk.
However, the source could also be a turn-off star on the far side of the bulge
or a sub-giant in the far side of the Galactic disk if it experiences
significantly more reddening than the bulge red clump stars. However, these
possibilities have only a small effect on our mass estimates for the host star
and planet. We find host star and planet masses of and from a Bayesian
analysis with a standard Galactic model under the assumption that the planet
hosting probability does not depend on the host mass or distance. However, if
we attempt to measure the host and planet masses with host star brightness
measurements from high angular resolution follow-up imaging, the implied masses
will be sensitive to the host star distance. The WFIRST exoplanet microlensing
survey is expected to use this method to determine the masses for many of the
planetary systems that it discovers, so this issue has important design
implications for the WFIRST exoplanet microlensing survey
Spectroscopic Mass and Host-star Metallicity Measurements for Newly Discovered Microlensing Planet OGLE-2018-BLG-0740Lb
We report the discovery of the microlensing planet OGLE-2018-BLG-0740Lb. The
planet is detected with a very strong signal of , but
the interpretation of the signal suffers from two types of degeneracies. One
type is caused by the previously known close/wide degeneracy, and the other is
caused by an ambiguity between two solutions, in which one solution requires to
incorporate finite-source effects, while the other solution is consistent with
a point-source interpretation. Although difficult to be firmly resolved based
on only the photometric data, the degeneracy is resolved in strong favor of the
point-source solution with the additional external information obtained from
astrometric and spectroscopic observations. The small astrometric offset
between the source and baseline object supports that the blend is the lens and
this interpretation is further secured by the consistency of the spectroscopic
distance estimate of the blend with the lensing parameters of the point-source
solution. The estimated mass of the host is and the mass
of the planet is (close solution) or (wide solution) and the lens is located at a distance of ~kpc.
The bright nature of the lens, with (), combined with
its dominance of the observed flux suggest that radial-velocity (RV) follow-up
observations of the lens can be done using high-resolution spectrometers
mounted on large telescopes, e.g., VLT/ESPRESSO, and this can potentially not
only measure the period and eccentricity of the planet but also probe for
close-in planets. We estimate that the expected RV amplitude would be .Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, 4 table
Candidate Brown-dwarf Microlensing Events with Very Short Timescales and Small Angular Einstein Radii
Short-timescale microlensing events are likely to be produced by substellar brown dwarfs (BDs), but it is difficult to securely identify BD lenses based on only event timescales t_E because short-timescale events can also be produced by stellar lenses with high relative lens-source proper motions. In this paper, we report three strong candidate BD-lens events found from the search for lensing events not only with short timescales (t_E âČ 6 days) but also with very small angular Einstein radii (Ξ_E âČ 0.05 mas) among the events that have been found in the 2016â2019 observing seasons. These events include MOA-2017-BLG-147, MOA-2017-BLG-241, and MOA-2019-BLG-256, in which the first two events are produced by single lenses and the last event is produced by a binary lens. From the Monte Carlo simulations of Galactic events conducted with the combined t_E and Ξ_E constraint, it is estimated that the lens masses of the individual events are
0.051^(+0.100)_(â0.027) Mâ, 0.044^(+0.090)_(â0.023) Mâ, and 0.046^(+0.067)_(â0.023) Mâ/0.038^(+0.056)_(â0.019) Mâ and the probability of the lens mass smaller than the lower limit of stars is ~80% for all events. We point out that routine lens mass measurements of short-timescale lensing events require survey-mode space-based observations
OGLE-2018-BLG-0022: First Prediction of an Astrometric Microlensing Signal from a Photometric Microlensing Event
In this work, we present the analysis of the binary microlensing event
OGLE-2018-BLG-0022 that is detected toward the Galactic bulge field. The dense
and continuous coverage with the high-quality photometry data from ground-based
observations combined with the space-based {\it Spitzer} observations of this
long time-scale event enables us to uniquely determine the masses and of the individual lens components.
Because the lens-source relative parallax and the vector lens-source relative
proper motion are unambiguously determined, we can likewise unambiguously
predict the astrometric offset between the light centroid of the magnified
images (as observed by the {\it Gaia} satellite) and the true position of the
source. This prediction can be tested when the individual-epoch {\it Gaia}
astrometric measurements are released.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, 4 table
Parallax of OGLE-2018-BLG-0596: A Low-mass-ratio Planet around an M-dwarf
We report the discovery of a microlensing planet
OGLE-2018-BLG-0596Lb, with preferred planet-host mass ratio . The planetary signal, which is characterized by a short "bump" on the rising side of the lensing light curve, was densely
covered by ground-based surveys. We find that the signal can be explained by a
bright source that fully envelops the planetary caustic, i.e., a "Hollywood"
geometry. Combined with the source proper motion measured from , the
satellite parallax measurement makes it possible to precisely
constrain the lens physical parameters. The preferred solution, in which the
planet perturbs the minor image due to lensing by the host, yields a
Uranus-mass planet with a mass of orbiting
a mid M-dwarf with a mass of . There is also
a second possible solution that is substantially disfavored but cannot be ruled
out, for which the planet perturbs the major image. The latter solution yields
and . By
combining the microlensing and data together with a Galactic model, we
find in either case that the lens lies on the near side of the Galactic bulge
at a distance . Future adaptive optics
observations may decisively resolve the major image/minor image degeneracy.Comment: 34 pages, 8 figures, Submitted to AAS journa
Free-Floating planet Mass Function from MOA-II 9-year survey towards the Galactic Bulge
We present the first measurement of the mass function of free-floating
planets (FFP) or very wide orbit planets down to an Earth mass, from the MOA-II
microlensing survey in 2006-2014. Six events are likely to be due to planets
with Einstein radius crossing times, days, and the shortest has
days and an angular Einstein radius of as. We measure the detection efficiency depending on both
and with image level simulations for the first
time. These short events are well modeled by a power-law mass function,
dexstar with for . This implies a total of FFP or very wide orbit
planets of mass per star, with a total mass of
per star. The number of FFPs is
times the number of planets in wide orbits (beyond the snow line), while the
total masses are of the same order. This suggests that the FFPs have been
ejected from bound planetary systems that may have had an initial mass function
with a power-law index of , which would imply a total mass of
star. This model predicts that Roman Space
Telescope will detect FFPs with masses down to that of
Mars (including with ). The
Sumi(2011) large Jupiter-mass FFP population is excluded.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in A
A Gas Giant Planet in the OGLE-2006-BLG-284L Stellar Binary System
We present the analysis of microlensing event OGLE-2006-BLG-284, which has a
lens system that consists of two stars and a gas giant planet with a mass ratio
of to the primary. The mass ratio of the
two stars is , and their projected separation is AU, while the projected separation of the planet from the primary
is AU. For this lens system to have stable orbits, the
three-dimensional separation of either the primary and secondary stars or the
planet and primary star must be much larger than that these projected
separations. Since we do not know which is the case, the system could include
either a circumbinary or a circumstellar planet. Because there is no
measurement of the microlensing parallax effect or lens system brightness, we
can only make a rough Bayesian estimate of the lens system masses and
brightness. We find host star and planet masses of , , and
, and the -band magnitude of the combined
brightness of the host stars is . The separation
between the lens and source system will be mas in mid-2020, so it
should be possible to detect the host system with follow-up adaptive optics or
Hubble Space Telescope observations
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