Study of vanadium containing catalysts for the upgrading of bio-based building blocks

In the last years, due to the continuous decreasing of the starting material deriving from the fossil sources and the increasing of the greenhouses emissions, the research has focused their effort on the developing of new industrial processes based on the transformation of starting materials deriving from the renewable sources into energy, fuels and chemicals. In particular, the aim of this thesis involves the investigation of two different processes: the first concerns the transformation of 1 butanol into butenes and maleic anhydride by oxidehydration process carried out in gas phase using vanadium/phosphorous mixed oxides. The second process regards the transformation of acetol to pyruvic acid by gas phase selective oxidation reaction, using different vanadium containing systems as catalysts. The results have shown the operative condition, the textural properties of the catalysts and the interaction between the substrate and the catalytic surface influence notably the reaction pathway

Nanofabrication by self-assembly

n/

Rescue of Advanced Pompe Disease in Mice with Hepatic Expression of Secretable Acid α-Glucosidase.

Pompe disease is a neuromuscular disorder caused by disease-associated variants in the gene encoding for the lysosomal enzyme acid α-glucosidase (GAA), which converts lysosomal glycogen to glucose. We previously reported full rescue of Pompe disease in symptomatic 4-month-old Gaa knockout (Gaa-/-) mice by adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector-mediated liver gene transfer of an engineered secretable form of GAA (secGAA). Here, we showed that hepatic expression of secGAA rescues the phenotype of 4-month-old Gaa-/- mice at vector doses at which the native form of GAA has little to no therapeutic effect. Based on these results, we then treated severely affected 9-month-old Gaa-/- mice with an AAV vector expressing secGAA and followed the animals for 9 months thereafter. AAV-treated Gaa-/- mice showed complete reversal of the Pompe phenotype, with rescue of glycogen accumulation in most tissues, including the central nervous system, and normalization of muscle strength. Transcriptomic profiling of skeletal muscle showed rescue of most altered pathways, including those involved in mitochondrial defects, a finding supported by structural and biochemical analyses, which also showed restoration of lysosomal function. Together, these results provide insight into the reversibility of advanced Pompe disease in the Gaa-/- mouse model via liver gene transfer of secGAA.This work was supported by Genethon, the French Muscular Dystro-phy Association (AFM), and Spark Therapeutics. It was also sup-ported by the European Union’s Research and Innovation Programunder grant agreement number 667751 (to F.M.), the EuropeanResearch Council Consolidator Grant under grant agreement number617432 (to F.M.), and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions-IndividualFellowship (MSCA-IF) grant agreement number 797144 (to U.C.)S

Luzaroan irauteko eraiki. Harritutako aberastasuna eta identitate soziala. XI.-ZIV. mendeak

Con autorización de la editorial para este libro.Petrifying Wealth. The Southern European Shift to Masonry as Collective Investment in identity, c.1050-1300Peer reviewe

Altered intrinsic excitability of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons in aged PDAPP mice

Amyloidopathy involves the accumulation of insoluble amyloid β (Aβ) species in the brain’s parenchyma and is a key histopathological hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Work on transgenic mice that overexpress A suggests that elevated A levels in the brain are associated with aberrant epileptiform activity and increased intrinsic excitability of CA1 hippocampal neurons. In this study we examined if similar changes could be observed in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons from aged PDAPP mice (20-23 month old, Indiana mutation: V717F on APP gene) compared to their age-matched WT littermate controls. Whole-cell current clamp recordings revealed that sub-threshold intrinsic properties, such as input resistance, resting membrane potential and hyperpolarization activated “sag” were unaffected, but capacitance was significantly decreased in the transgenic animals. No differences between genotypes were observed in the overall number of action potentials (AP) elicited by 500 ms supra-threshold current stimuli. PDAPP neurons, however, exhibited higher instantaneous firing frequencies after accommodation in response to high intensity current injections. The AP waveform was narrower and shorter in amplitude in PDAPP mice: these changes, according to our in silico model of a CA1/3 pyramidal neuron, depended on the respective reduction and increase of Na+ and K+ voltage-gated channels maximal conductances. Finally, the after-hyperpolarization (AHP), seen after the first AP evoked by a +300 pA current injection and after 50 Hz AP bursts, was more pronounced in PDAPP mice. These data show that Aβ-overexpression in aged mice altered the capacitance, the neuronal firing and the AP waveform of CA1 pyramidal neurons. Some of these findings are consistent with previous work on younger PDAPP, they also show important differences that can be potentially ascribed to the interaction between amyloidopathy and ageing. Such a change of IE properties over time underlies that the increased incidence of seizure observed in AD patients might rely on different mechanistic pathways during progression of the disease

Studio delle caratteristiche di catalizzatori per la sintesi diretta di acido acrilico da glicerolo

La saturazione del mercato del glicerolo, co-prodotto del biodiesel, ha portato allo sviluppo di nuovi processi che permettessero la sua trasformazione in composti a maggiore valore aggiunto. Uno dei principali processi di interesse è la sintesi diretta di acido acrilico, che prevede uno step di disidratazione, catalizzato da siti acidi, con l’ottenimento dell’acroleina, e un successivo step di ossidazione dell’aldeide insatura, mediato da siti redox, ad acido acrilico. Il compimento di entrambi gli step catalitici può essere effettuato mediante l’utilizzo di catalizzatori bifunzionali. I sistemi più promettenti sono costituiti da bronzi di tungsteno/vanadio con struttura esagonale. Per sviluppare ulteriormente tali sistemi è necessario determinare l’influenza di alcune loro caratteristiche, come l’acidità e le caratteristiche dello ioni vanadio, sulle prestazioni catalitiche. Lo scopo di questo lavoro ha riguardato lo studio dell’influenza dei centri acidi presenti nei bronzi esagonali di tungsteno/vanadio, e del ruolo dello ione vanadio, analizzando il comportamento catalitico di bronzi di tungsteno e di alluminofosfati

SO2 resistant soot oxidation catalysts based on orthovanadates

Metal orthovanadates based on Fe, Al and Ce were prepared by co-precipitation and their structural, morphological and reduction properties were characterized by means of XRD, BET and temperature programmed reduction (H2-TPR). Catalytic soot oxidation was carried out with thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and temperature programmed oxidation (TPO), respectively, to study the influence of the soot-catalyst contact (tight or loose) as well as the influence of SO2 contamination on the catalyst's activity. The catalysts were compared with CeO2 as reference material. Under tight contact mode, metal orthovanadates were able to oxidize soot at 466\u2013483 \ub0C while in loose contact mode their activity was close to that of CeO2. However, the former did not suffer an activity loss due to SO2 poisoning, which is attributed to less adsorptive interactions between SO2 and the vanadates as could be proven by FT-IR and Raman spectroscopy

A New Process for Maleic Anhydride Synthesis from a Renewable Building Block: The Gas-Phase Oxidehydration of Bio-1-butanol

We investigated the synthesisofmaleic anhydride by oxidehydration of abio-alcohol, 1-butanol,asapossible alternative to the classical process of n-butane oxidation. Avanadyl pyrophosphate catalystwas used to explore the one-pot reaction, which involved two sequential steps:1)1-butanol dehydration to 1-butene, catalysed by acid sites, and 2) the oxidation of butenes to maleic anhydride,catalysed by redox sites. Anon-negligible amount of phthalic anhydride wasalso formed. The effect of different experimentalparameters was investigated with chemically sourced1-butanol,and the results werethen confirmed by using genuinely bio-sourced 1-butanol. In the case of bio-1-butanol, however,the purity of the product remarkably affected the yield of maleic anhydride. It was found that the reactionmechanism includes the oxidation of butenes to crotonaldehyde and the oxidation of the latter to either furan or maleic acid, both of which are transformed to produce maleic anhydride

Industry 4.0 and Human Resource Management Processes: A Qualitative Study.

Industry 4.0 and Human Resource Management Processes: A Qualitative Study

Improved process for the transformation of primary aliphatic alcohols into higher aliphatic alcohols

A process for obtaining higher aliphatic alcohols starting from aliphatic primary alcohols by condensation reactions is disclosed. Specifically, the process comprises a step in which an aliphatic primary alcohol is contacted in a 5 homogeneous phase with a catalyst mixture comprising a transition metal, a base and an additive; specifically, this additive can be selected from the classes of compounds of the isoquinolines N-oxide, quinolines N-oxide, pyridines N-oxide, benzoquinones, naphthoquinones, or TEMPO. In particular, the process can be carried out by contacting said aliphatic primary alcohol with a catalyst of a 10 recycled transition metal, with a freshly added base and with a recycled additive of the aforementioned type