Partial Oxidation of Methane to Syngas Over Noble Metal Catalysts Supported by Fecralloy Fibre

RÉSUMÉ : Le torchage des rejets gazeux par l’industrie pétrolière émet une quantité importante de GES qui accélèrent le changement climatique en plus de nuire à l’environnement avec des polluants toxiques tels que des composés sulfurés et des métaux lourds. Le méthane est un vecteur énergétique précieux et sa conversion en combustibles liquides réduirait l’empreinte environnementale des pétrolières. Un procédé micro gaz-à-liquide (μGtL) pourrait réduire le brûlage de méthane par torchage et permettra de produire un carburant énergétiquement dense: le diesel. Une opération unitaire intégrant simultanément la production de gaz de synthèse à haute pression et une étape Fischer-Tropsch peut réduire substantiellement les coûts d’exploitation liés à la synthèse de liquides GtL.----------ABSTRACT : Gas flaring accelerates climate change with greenhouse gases also harms the environment with other pollutants such as H2S, carbon sulphides, NOx and heavy metals. Methane is a valuable energy vector, and converting the associated gas from thousands of wells to liquid fuels would reduce the environmental footprint of oil field operations. Micro Gas-to-Liquids technology (μGtL) can potentially reduce the natural gas that is flared throughout the world while producing valuable diesel

Air pollution control or economic development? Empirical evidence from enterprises with production restrictions

Production restriction is an environmental regulation adopted in China to curb the air pollution of industrial enterprises. Frequent production restrictions may cause economic losses for enterprises and further hinder their green transformation. Polluting enterprises are faced with the dilemma of choosing environmental protection or economic development. Using panel data on industrial enterprises in China from 2016 to 2019, this paper evaluates the impact of production restrictions on both enterprises' environmental and economic performance with regression models. The results show that production restrictions significantly drop the concentrations of SO2 and NOx emitted from polluting enterprises. Meanwhile, production restrictions have significant negative effects on operating income, financial expenses, net profit, and environmental protection investment. The mechanism analysis reveals that production restrictions mitigate air pollutant concentrations by increasing the number of green patents and improving total factor productivity, which also verifies the Porter hypothesis. However, there is a masking mediating effect of environmental investment, which indicates that the reduction of environmental investment hinders the enterprise's efforts to control air pollution. In addition, heterogeneous analysis shows that the economic shock on microenterprises is larger than that on small enterprises. Implementing production restrictions for microenterprises may be a way to eliminate their backwards production capacity

From CO₂ to formic acid fuel cells

ABSTRACT: Formic acid is a liquid, safe, and energy-dense carrier for fuel cells. Above all, it can be sustainably produced from the electroreduction of CO₂. The formic acid market is currently saturated, and it requires alternative applications to justify additional production capacity. Fuel cell technologies offer a chance to expand it, while creating an opportunity for sustainability in the energy sector. Formic acid-based fuel cells represent a promising energy supply system in terms of high theoretical open-circuit voltage (1.48 V). Compared to common fuel cells running on H2 (e.g., proton-exchange membrane fuel cells), formic acid has a lower storage cost and is safer. This review focuses on the sustainable production of formic acid from CO₂ and on the detailed analysis of commercial examples of formic acid-based fuel cells, in particular direct formic acid fuel cell stacks. Designs described in the literature are mostly at the laboratory scale, still, with 301 W as the maximum power output achieved. These case studies are fundamental for the scale-up; however, additional efforts are required to solve crossover and increase performance

Acceptability and feasibility of smartphone-assisted 24 h recalls in the Chinese population

Abstract Objective To examine the acceptability and feasibility of using smartphone technology to assess beverage intake and evaluate whether the feasibility of smartphone use is greater among key sub-populations. Design An acceptability and feasibility study of recording the video dietary record, the acceptability of the ecological momentary assessment (EMA), wearing smartphones and whether the videos helped participants recall intake after a cross-over validation study. Setting Rural and urban area in Shanghai, China. Subjects Healthy adults ( n 110) aged 20–40 years old. Results Most participants reported that the phone was acceptable in most aspects, including that videos were easy to use (70 %), helped with recalls (77 %), EMA reminders helped them record intake (75 %) and apps were easy to understand (85 %). However, 49 % of the participants reported that they had trouble remembering to take videos of the beverages before consumption or 46 % felt embarrassed taking videos in front of others. Moreover, 72 % reported that the EMA reminders affected their consumption. When assessing overall acceptability of using smartphones, 72 % of the participants were favourable responders. There were no statistically significant differences in overall acceptability for overweight v. normal-weight participants or for rural v. urban residents. However, we did find that the overall acceptability was higher for males (81 %) than females (61 %, P =0·017). Conclusions Our study did not find smartphone technology helped with dietary assessments in a Chinese population. However, simpler approaches, such as using photographs instead of videos, may be more feasible for enhancing 24 h dietary recalls

A Conformation-Sensitive Monoclonal Antibody against the A2 Domain of von Willebrand Factor Reduces Its Proteolysis by ADAMTS13

The size of von Willebrand factor (VWF), controlled by ADAMTS13-dependent proteolysis, is associated with its hemostatic activity. Many factors regulate ADAMTS13-dependent VWF proteolysis through their interaction with VWF. These include coagulation factor VIII, platelet glycoprotein 1bα, and heparin sulfate, which accelerate the cleavage of VWF. Conversely, thrombospondin-1 decreases the rate of VWF proteolysis by ADAMTS13 by competing with ADAMTS13 for the A3 domain of VWF. To investigate whether murine monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against human VWF affect the susceptibility of VWF to proteolysis by ADAMTS13 in vitro, eight mAbs to different domains of human VWF were used to evaluate the effects on VWF cleavage by ADAMTS13 under fluid shear stress and static/denaturing conditions. Additionally, the epitope of anti-VWF mAb (SZ34) was mapped using recombinant proteins in combination with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and Western blot analysis. The results indicate that mAb SZ34 inhibited proteolytic cleavage of VWF by ADAMTS13 in a concentration-dependent manner under fluid shear stress, but not under static/denaturing conditions. The binding epitope of SZ34 mAb is located between A1555 and G1595 in the central A2 domain of VWF. These data show that an anti-VWF mAb against the VWF-A2 domain (A1555-G1595) reduces the proteolytic cleavage of VWF by ADAMTS13 under shear stress, suggesting the role of this region in interaction with ADAMTS13

Identification and Functional Analysis of a Novel von Willebrand Factor Mutation in a Family with Type 2A von Willebrand Disease

von Willebrand factor (VWF) is essential for normal hemostasis. VWF gene mutations cause the hemorrhagic von Willebrand disease (VWD). In this study, a 9-year-old boy was diagnosed as type 2A VWD, based on a history of abnormal bleeding, low plasma VWF antigen and activity, low plasma factor VIII activity, and lack of plasma high-molecular-weight (HMW) VWF multimers. Sequencing analysis detected a 6-bp deletion in exon 28 of his VWF gene, which created a mutant lacking D1529V1530 residues in VWF A2 domain. This mutation also existed in his family members with abnormal bleedings but not in >60 normal controls. In transfected HEK293 cells, recombinant VWF ΔD1529V1530 protein had markedly reduced levels in the conditioned medium (42±4% of wild-type (WT) VWF, p<0.01). The mutant VWF in the medium had less HMW multimers. In contrast, the intracellular levels of the mutant VWF in the transfected cells were significantly higher than that of WT (174±29%, p<0.05), indicating intracellular retention of the mutant VWF. In co-transfection experiments, the mutant reduced WT VWF secretion from the cells. By immunofluorescence staining, the retention of the mutant VWF was identified within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Together, we identified a unique VWF mutation responsible for the bleeding phenotype in a patient family with type 2A VWD. The mutation impaired VWF trafficking through the ER, thereby preventing VWF secretion from the cells. Our results illustrate the diversity of VWF gene mutations, which contributes to the wide spectrum of VWD

Factors influencing users’ post replying behavior in a senior online community: An empirical investigation

Senior online communities (SOCs) have become an important venue for older people to seek support and exchange information. While online community engagement has been well studied in the existing literature, few studies have explored how older adults behave in online communities.Therefore, drawing upon signaling theory, this study aims to investigate how different content-related and social-related signals influence users’ post replying behavior (i.e., reply to another user’s post) in SOCs. We collected 7486 health-related posts and 71,859 comments from one ofthe most popular Chinese SOCs, Keai (https://www.keai99.com). Information signals in the posts were operationalized using different techniques such as text mining and social network analysis. Results from negative binomial regression indicated that content-related signals (posts’ topic andlength) and social-related signals (authors’ position and centrality) were related to replying behavior. In addition, we revealed some differences between the effects of these signals on informational replies and emotional replies. More specifically, compared to posts mentioningtraditional Chinese medicine, posts mentioning western medicine received more informational replies, but less emotional replies. Original posts triggered more informational replies, whereas shared posts attracted more emotional replies. Average reply length was positively related toinformational replies, but negatively related to emotional replies. Considering the important role of SOCs in satisfying older adults’ social and informational needs, future research is needed to promote user social engagement in SOCs, thereby maintaining their sustainability