Pretreatment of Miscanthus giganteus with Lime and Oxidants for Biofuels

ACKNOWLEDEGMENTS The authors are grateful to the Energy Biosciences Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, for financial support, Dr. Stefan R. Bauer, Valerie D. Mitchell, and Ana Belen Ibanez Zamora for technical assistance, and Jason Cai for fruitful discussions. The authors thank the China Scholarship Council for financial assistance to Fuxin Yang during his stay at University of California, Berkeley.Peer reviewedPostprin

Thermodynamics of folding and association of lattice-model proteins

Closely related to the “protein folding problem” is the issue of protein misfolding and aggregation. Proteinaggregation has been associated with the pathologies of nearly 20 human diseases and presents serious difficulties during the manufacture of pharmaceutical proteins. Computational studies of multiprotein systems have recently emerged as a powerful complement to experimental efforts aimed at understanding the mechanisms of proteinaggregation. We describe the thermodynamics of systems containing two lattice-model 64-mers. A parallel tempering algorithm abates problems associated with glassy systems and the weighted histogram analysis method improves statistical quality. The presence of a second chain has a substantial effect on single-chain conformational preferences. The melting temperature is substantially reduced, and the increase in the population of unfolded states is correlated with an increase in interactions between chains. The transition from two native chains to a non-native aggregate is entropically favorable. Non-native aggregates receive ∼25% of their stabilizing energy from intraprotein contacts not found in the lowest-energy structure. Contact maps show that for non-native dimers, nearly 50% of the most probable interprotein contacts involve pairs of residues that form native contacts, suggesting that a domain-swapping mechanism is involved in self-association

Density distribution for a polymer absorbed at an oil-waterinterface

The interaction between a polymer segment and an oil-water interface is represented by an asymmetric square-well potential where the well-depth on one side reflects water-polymer and the well depth on the other side reflects oil-polymer interactions. The polymer is represented by a Gaussian chain. The polymer's density distribution is calculated along a coordinate perpendicular to the interface. Results are obtained as a function of the well width, the well depth and its asymmetry and, most important, the polymer's length. For a symmetric well, the distribution shows a strong maximum at the interface provided that the polymer is sufficiently long. For an asymmetric well, the polymer is also strongly adsorbed at the interface provided that the polymer is sufficiently long and provided that the larger well-depth does not exceed a critical value that depends on the smaller well-depth. The calculations are in substantial agreement with experimental results that indicate nearly irreversible adsorption of long-chain molecules at an oil-water interface

Studies of ionic liquids in lithium-ion battery test systems

In this work, thermal and electrochemical properties of neat and mixed ionic liquid - lithium salt systems have been studied. The presence of a lithium salt causes both thermal and phase-behavior changes. Differential scanning calorimeter DSC and thermal gravimetric analysis TGA were used for thermal analysis for several imidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, trifluoromethansulfonate, BF{sub 4}, and PF{sub 6} systems. Conductivities and diffusion coefficient have been measured for some selected systems. Chemical reactions in electrode - ionic liquid electrolyte interfaces were studied by interfacial impedance measurements. Lithium-lithium and lithium-carbon cells were studied at open circuit and a charged system. The ionic liquids studied include various imidazolium systems that are already known to be electrochemically unstable in the presence of lithium metal. In this work the development of interfacial resistance is shown in a Li|BMIMBF{sub 4} + LiBF{sub 4}|Li cell as well as results from some cycling experiments. As the ionic liquid reacts with the lithium electrode the interfacial resistance increases. The results show the magnitude of reactivity due to reduction of the ionic liquid electrolyte that eventually has a detrimental effect on battery performance

Nitric-acid Hydrolysis of Miscanthus giganteus to Sugars Fermented to Bioethanol

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Effect of salt identity on the phase diagram for a globularprotein in aqueous electrolyte solution

Monte Carlo simulations are used to establish the potential of mean force between two globular proteins in an aqueous electrolyte solution. This potential includes nonelectrostatic contributions arising from dispersion forces first, between the globular proteins, and second, between ions in solution and between each ion and the globular protein. These latter contributions are missing from standard models. The potential of mean force, obtained from simulation, is fitted to an analytic equation. Using our analytic potential of mean force and Barker-Henderson perturbation theory, we obtain phase diagrams for lysozyme solutions that include stable and metastable fluid-fluid and solid-fluid phases when the electrolyte is 0.2 M NaSCN or NaI or NaCl. The nature of the electrolyte has a significant effect on the phase diagram