CO₂ gasification of bio-char derived from conventional and microwave pyrolysis

Thermal-chemical processing of biomass is expected to provide renewable and clean energy and fuels in the future. Due to the nature of endothermic reactions, microwave and conventional heating have been applied to this technology. However, more studies need to be carried out to clarify the difference between these two heating technologies. In this work, we investigated two bio-char samples produced from conventional pyrolysis of wood biomass (yield of bio-char: 38.48 and 59.70 wt.%, respectively) and one bio-char produced from microwave pyrolysis with a yield of 45.16 wt.% from the same biomass sample at different process conditions. Various methodologies have been used to characterise the bio-chars. CO₂ gasification of bio-char has also been studied using a thermogravimetric analyser (TGA) and a fixed-bed reaction system. The results show that volatile and carbon contents of the bio-char derived from microwave pyrolysis were between the two conventional bio-chars. However, the microwave bio-char is more reactive for CO₂ gasification, as more CO was released during TGA experiments, and the CO release peak was narrower compared with the CO₂ gasification of the conventional bio-chars. It is suggested that the conventional bio-char is less reactive due to the presence of more secondary chars which are produced from secondary reactions of volatiles during the conventional biomass pyrolysis. While the microwave pyrolysis generates more uniform bio-chars with less secondary char, and therefore, has advantages of producing bio-char for downstream char gasification

MCM3 is a novel proliferation marker associated with longer survival for patients with tubo-ovarian high-grade serous carcinoma

Tubo-ovarian high-grade serous carcinomas (HGSC) are highly proliferative neoplasms that generally respond well to platinum/taxane chemotherapy. We recently identified minichromosome maintenance complex component 3 (MCM3), which is involved in the initiation of DNA replication and proliferation, as a favorable prognostic marker in HGSC. Our objective was to further validate whether MCM3 mRNA expression and possibly MCM3 protein levels are associated with survival in patients with HGSC. MCM3 mRNA expression was measured using NanoString expression profiling on formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue (N = 2355 HGSC) and MCM3 protein expression was assessed by immunohistochemistry (N = 522 HGSC) and compared with Ki-67. Kaplan-Meier curves and the Cox proportional hazards model were used to estimate associations with survival. Among chemotherapy-naïve HGSC, higher MCM3 mRNA expression (one standard deviation increase in the score) was associated with longer overall survival (HR = 0.87, 95% CI 0.81-0.92, p < 0.0001, N = 1840) in multivariable analysis. MCM3 mRNA expression was highest in the HGSC C5.PRO molecular subtype, although no interaction was observed between MCM3, survival and molecular subtypes. MCM3 and Ki-67 protein levels were significantly lower after exposure to neoadjuvant chemotherapy compared to chemotherapy-naïve tumors: 37.0% versus 46.4% and 22.9% versus 34.2%, respectively. Among chemotherapy-naïve HGSC, high MCM3 protein levels were also associated with significantly longer disease-specific survival (HR = 0.52, 95% CI 0.36-0.74, p = 0.0003, N = 392) compared to cases with low MCM3 protein levels in multivariable analysis. MCM3 immunohistochemistry is a promising surrogate marker of proliferation in HGSC