Dyes removal from water using low cost absorbents

In this study, the removal capacity of low cost adsorbents during the adsorption of Methylene Blue (MB) and Congo Red (CR) at different concentrations (50 and 100mg•L-1) was evaluated. These adsorbents were produced from wood wastes (cedar and teak) by chemical activation (ZnCl2). Both studied materials, Activated Cedar (AC) and activated teak (AT) showed a good fit of their experimental data to the pseudo second order kinetic model and Langmuir isotherms. The maximum adsorption capacities for AC were 2000.0 and 444.4mg•g-1 for MB and CR, respectively, while for AT, maximum adsorption capacities of 1052.6 and 86.4mg•g-1 were found for MB and CR, respectively. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd

Mycoplasma isolation in milk samples from dairy herds in Chile

Mycoplasma bovine mastitis is a highly contagious disease, usually associated with clinical cases refractory to antibiotic treatment. The aim of this study was the isolation of Mycoplasma species in cattle milk samples from dairy herds in Chile. Bulk tank milk samples selected by convenience from 91 Holstein Friesian dairy herds located in Los Rios (66) and Los Lagos (25), the two most important dairy Regions in the country, were collected. Additionally, 100 individual milk samples from cows with a high incidence of clinical mastitis, refractory to antibiotic therapy, and negative bacteriological results for traditional mastitis pathogens, all from the Biobío Region and received in our diagnostic laboratory, were included. All samples were cultured for 10 days on PPLO medium. The differentiation of suspect colonies between genus Mycoplasma and Acholeplasma was performed by the digitonin test and a specific PCR. The species identification was performed by a M. bovis specific PCR and 16S rRNA sequencing. Mycoplasma was isolated from 3 (3.3%) bulk tank milk samples and 2 (2%) individual cow milk samples. All colonies were identified as Mycoplasma by the digitonin test and by a specific PCR. At species level, one strain isolated from a bulk tank milk sample was identified as M. bovis. The remaining two strains isolated from bulk tank milk samples were identified as M. bovigenitalium, while the two strains isolated from milk of individual cows were identified as M. alkalescens. These results show that not only M. bovis is present in Chilean dairy herds, but also other pathogenic species not previously described in Chile such as M. bovigenitalium and M. alkalescens, which pose a potential risk for dairy herds in southern Chile

Coincident Massless, Minimally Coupled Scalar Correlators on General Cosmological Backgrounds

The coincidence limits of the massless, minimally coupled scalar propagator and its first two derivatives have great relevance for the project of summing up the leading logarithms induced by loops of inflationary gravitons. We use dimensional regularization to derive good analytic approximations for the three quantities on a general cosmological background geometry which underwent inflation.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figures, uses LaTeX2e, Version 2 revised for publication with improved figures and length of 34 page

Zero-field Kondo splitting and quantum-critical transition in double quantum dots

Double quantum dots offer unique possibilities for the study of many-body correlations. A system containing one Kondo dot and one effectively noninteracting dot maps onto a single-impurity Anderson model with a structured (nonconstant) density of states. Numerical renormalization-group calculations show that while band filtering through the resonant dot splits the Kondo resonance, the singlet ground state is robust. The system can also be continuously tuned to create a pseudogapped density of states and access a quantum critical point separating Kondo and non-Kondo phases.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Spin relaxation rates in quasi-one-dimensional coupled quantum dots

We study theoretically the spin relaxation rate in quasi-one-dimensional coupled double semiconductor quantum dots. We consider InSb and GaAs-based systems in the presence of the Rashba spin-orbit interaction, which causes mixing of opposite-spin states, and allows phonon-mediated transitions between energy eigenstates. Contributions from all phonon modes and coupling mechanisms in zincblende semiconductors are taken into account. The spin relaxation rate is shown to display a sharp, cusp-like maximum as function of the interdot-barrier width, at a value of the width which can be controlled by an external magnetic field. This remarkable behavior is associated with the symmetric-antisymmetric level splitting in the structure.Comment: 4 figures, Submitted to Applied Physics Letter