Wastewater purification with activated carbon

Activated carbon filtration is a frequently used technology based on the adsorption of particles of contaminants onto the surface of a filter. This process is effective in removing some organic pollutants as anionic surfactant from wastewater among others contaminants [1,2]. The objective of this study is to eliminate anionic surfactants and chemical organic demand in a wastewater coming from a detergent industry as these contaminants are majority in industries specialized in manufacturing cleaning chemical products [3]. Seven assays were proposed in order to determine the optimal concentration of activated carbon which allow a correct elimination of initial contaminants in the wastewater from a detergent industry (12800 mg/L of COD and 4,6 mg/L of anionic surfactants). For this proposal, 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 g/L of activated carbon were added to several vessels containing 250 ml of wastewater and, after stirring (700 rpm) during 1 h. Treated waters were filtered through a 5 µm of diameter filter and COD and anionic surfactants quantifications were carried out by spectrophotometry using the kits LCK 514 and LCK 332 for COD and anionic surfactants measurements, respectively. Results showed than only 5 g/L of activated carbon were enough to remove 90% of anionic surfactant reaching a reduction of 99% of pollutant concentration with 100 g/L of activated carbon. In contrast, COD removal was less noticeable, decreasing only 10% with 5 g/L of adsorbent. A reduction of 73% in COD concentration was achieved when the higher concentration of active carbon was used. Therefore, COD is a critical parameter for the design of the decontamination technique as elevated concentrations of adsorbent do not guarantee a correct wastewater treatment. In consequence, activated carbon could be used as pre-treatment and an adequate combination with other technology (as ozonation) is desirable in order to decrease operation cos

Ethanol Production from Sugarcane Bagasse Pretreated by Steam Explosion

Bioethanol is an alternative renewable fuel that can be produced from cellulosic biomass through hydrolysis and fermentation based processes. Sugarcane bagasse constitutes a potential lignocellulosic substrate for bioethanol production, since it has high sugar content and is a renewable, cheap and readily available feedstock. In this work, steam explosion pretreatment at different temperatures (200°C, 215°C and 230°C) for 5 min was evaluated on sugarcane bagasse for ethanol production by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF). Sugar recovery in the solid and liquid fraction obtained after pretreatment and the enzymatic digestibility of the pretreated material were used to determine the optimum temperature, 215°C for 5 min, which resulted in an overall glucose yield of 86.8% of the content in raw material. The solid fraction of sugarcane bagasse pretreated at 215°C was submitted to SSF at increasing solid loading and the effect of xylanase supplementation and a presaccharification step was assessed. The highest final ethanol concentration (56.3 g L-1) was achieved with SSF supplemented with xylanase enzyme at 20% of solid concentration. Ethanol yields exceeded 0.30 g per gram of glucose in all the conconditions tested. The results obtained demonstrate the effectiveness of steam explosion in the treatment of sugarcane bagasse fiber

Evaluación del comportamiento del panel en marcos rígidos de acero

269 páginas. Maestría en Ingeniería Estructural.El presente estudio contempla la evaluación de la zona del panel en el comportamiento no lineal de marcos rígidos de acero cuando se les somete a cargas accidentales extraordinarias, y en particular a las acciones debidas a sismos fuertes. Para ello, se realizará primero la calibración de un modelo no-lineal de la zona del panel que reproduzca la respuesta que exhibe durante una prueba en laboratorio. Estos análisis no-lineales se realizan con ayuda del programa OpenSees. Enseguida se realizaron análisis no-lineales para un grupo de marcos rígidos de acero que incluyan implícitamente en el modelo los componentes que definan la zona del panel; el marco prototipo que se estudia tiene aspectos geométricos similares a los descritos en el Apéndice B del FEMA-355C (FEMA, 2000). Para fines de comparación, también se realizan análisis no-lineales de los sistemas estructurales propuestos sin considerar la zona del panel, y considerándolo como una zona rígida. Un cálculo previo de la estructura de los sistemas sin la contribución de la zona del panel se realiza a partir del software ETABS, del cual se obtiene la respuesta global del sistema. Posteriormente se efectúan análisis no-lineales de estos marcos rígidos con carga estática incremental (pushover), carga cíclica reversible, y dinámicos con aceleraciones en la base; estos análisis permiten identificar la influencia de la zona del panel en el comportamiento de la estructura. La comparativa de los edificios con y sin panel, está dirigida a evaluar la respuesta de los sistemas estructurales cuando el diseño no considera la presencia del panel, contra el comportamiento de estos sistemas cuando el panel está presente en su análisis y diseño. Los resultados totales permiten comparar un diseño basado en un modelo tradicional, contra otro que, si considera implícitamente la zona de panel en su análisis y diseño, y así poder establecer recomendaciones para el análisis y el diseño de estructuras. Dentro del desarrollo del trabajo se realiza un estudio paramétrico de la zona del panel para proponer tablas de diseño en base a lo establecido en las especificaciones para diseño sísmico para edificios de acero estructural

Dissecting the multispecies interaction network at the A. thaliana root-soil interface

In nature, healthy and asymptomatic plants cohabit with a variety of microbes, such as bacteria, fungi, and oomycetes, forming complex microbial consortia that interact with each other and likely provide fitness benefits to the host plant. Advances in culture-independent methods have deepened our understanding on microbial communities’ distribution in nature and the environmental factors shaping these communities. However, there is still a lack of consensus between studies and a more holistic approach is needed, by studying several microbial groups under a variety of environmental conditions. Importantly, there is a significant part of the microbial variance that remains unexplained in host-associated microbiota studies. Decades of research have shown that microbes interact with each other, indicating that microbe-microbe interactions might represent a major, yet poorly described, force driving microbial community establishment in and outside plant roots. In order to assess microbial communities´ functions and assembly rules, microbiota reconstitution experiments in gnotobiotic plant systems are needed. By linking microbial community profiling data from natural Arabidopsis thaliana populations (chapter I) with reconstruction experiments with synthetic microbial communities and germ-free plants (chapter II), I provide novel insight into how environment, host-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions affect microbial community structure and plant health in nature. In the first chapter, I analyzed bacterial, fungal and oomycetal communities associated with Arabidopsis thaliana roots from seventeen natural populations across a European transect, for three consecutive years. By developing a fractionation protocol that distinguishes four microbial niches (Soil, Rhizosphere, Rhizoplane and Root), I dissected the relevance of host compartment, host species, biogeography, harvesting year, and soil characteristics on microbial communities’ distribution at a continental scale. I showed that bacterial, fungal and oomycetal communities are primarily shaped by different factors, including the host niche for bacteria, the site for fungi, and the year for oomycetes. Also, I identified an A.thaliana root-associated core microbiota, resilient across harvesting years and locations. Furthermore, reciprocal transplant experiments conducted in natural and controlled conditions uncovered the important role of climate as well as the climate-dependent host genotype effect on microbial communities’ distribution. In the second chapter, I utilized a gnotobiotic plant system for reconstituting multispecies synthetic microbial communities, which revealed the relevance of multi-kingdom microbe-microbe interactions for plant health and microbial communities’ assembly. In these experiments the bacterial microbiota is essential for plant survival and protection against detrimental activities of root-derived filamentous eukaryotes. Moreover, I revealed that microbial load only partially drives plant health and that disease protection of bacterial root commensals is a redundant trait needed to maintain microbial interkingdom balance for plant health. Finally, I investigated the dynamics of microbiota establishment and explored the importance of the host for microbiota establishment

Simulación de efectos electromagnéticos utilizando la tecnología de realidad aumentada

Los objetivos parciales son los que se definen a continuación: Conocer qué es la realidad aumentada y los diferentes usos y ventajas que puede suponer, en este caso, en relación a la educación y la enseñanza. Conocer y aprender el funcionamiento de la herramienta de diseño: Unity. Esta herramienta nos ayudará a poder llevar a cabo el diseño de la aplicación a través de elementos como objetos 3D, Canvas, materiales… Conocer las funcionalidades que nos proporciona Vuforia a través de Unity para poder introducir la realidad aumentada. Aprender a utilizar el lenguaje de programación necesario para llevar a cabo la aplicación, C#, y su entorno de programación, Microsoft Visual Studio. Esto incluye tareas como, por ejemplo, saber cómo se define cada tipo de dato, conocer las funciones que incluyen las librerías de Unity para este lenguaje de programación y saber cómo usar cada una de ellas o conocer las herramientas de depuración de la plataforma de programación. Gracias a ellos, podemos programar la aplicación para que tenga las funcionalidades deseadas. Aprender a diseñar objetos 3D con Blender, ya que nos hará falta para poder construir los objetos digitales necesarios en la simulación que no nos proporciona Unity.Ingeniería en Tecnologías de Telecomunicació

Una propuesta de intervención de yoga con niños/as de tres años

Este trabajo se centra en la elaboración de una propuesta didáctica de yoga. Está dirigido a niños de 3 años y se llevará a cabo en la sala de psicomotricidad, en un colegio concertado de la ciudad de Valladolid. He contrastado diferentes fuentes y he investigado hasta alcanzar una forma adecuada de transmitir esta técnica con niños. Para ello me he basado en el método de investigación-acción, que me permite mejorar y adaptar mi práctica en función de las necesidades y situaciones que surjan en el aula. El objetivo es aportar un ejemplo sólido de como practicar yoga en las aulas de Educación infantil.Grado en Educación Infanti

Magnetoliposomes loaded with poly-unsaturated fatty acids as novel theranostic anti-inflammatory formulations

This work are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.We describe the preparation, physico-chemical characterization and anti-inflammatory properties of liposomes containing the superparamagnetic nanoparticle Nanotex, the fluorescent dye Rhodamine-100 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid ethyl ester (ω-3 PUFA-EE), as theranostic anti-inflammatory agents. Liposomes were prepared after drying chloroform suspensions of egg phosphatidylcholine, hydration of the lipid film with aqueous phases containing or not Nanotex, Rhodamine-100 dye or ω-3 PUFA-EE, and eleven extrusion steps through nanometric membrane filters. This resulted in uniform preparations of liposomes of approximately 200 nm diameter. Extraliposomal contents were removed from the preparation by gel filtration chromatography. High Resolution Magic Angle Spinning 1H NMR Spectroscopy of the liposomal preparations containing ω-3 PUFA-EE revealed well resolved 1H resonances from highly mobile ω-3 PUFA-EE, suggesting the formation of very small (ca. 10 nm) ω-3 PUFA-EE nanogoticules, tumbling fast in the NMR timescale. Chloroform extraction of the liposomal preparations revealed additionally the incorporation of ω-3 PUFA-EE within the membrane domain. Water diffusion weighted spectra, indicated that the goticules of ω-3 PUFA-EE or its insertion in the membrane did not affect the average translational diffusion coefficient of water, suggesting an intraliposomal localization, that was confirmed by ultrafiltration. The therapeutic efficacy of these preparations was tested in two different models of inflammatory disease as inflammatory colitis or the inflammatory component associated to glioma development. Results indicate that the magnetoliposomes loaded with ω-3 PUFA-EE allowed MRI visualization in vivo and improved the outcome of inflammatory disease in both animal models, decreasing significantly colonic inflammation and delaying, or even reversing, glioma development. Together, our results indicate that magnetoliposomes loaded with ω-3 PUFA-EE may become useful anti-inflammatory agents for image guided drug delivery.This work was supported in part by grants from SOLUTEX SL to SC, grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity SAF2011-23622, IPT-2012-1331-006000 to SC, grant CTQ2013-47669-R to PB, and grant S2010/BMD-2349 from the Community of Madrid to S.C. and P.B. D.C. and V.N. held predoctoral contracts from Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC).Peer Reviewe

Deterioro cognitivo y horas de sueño en mayores de 65 años no institucionalizados: estudio en farmacia comunitaria

Objetivo: Determinar factores de riesgo, relacionados con el estilo de vida, asociados con la presencia de deterioro cognitivo en personas mayores de 65 años.Método: Para ello se diseñó un estudio observacional transversal con personas mayores de 65 años no institucionalizadas mediante entrevista personal estructurada. El estudio se realizó en 14 farmacias de la Comunidad Valenciana desde marzo 2011 hasta marzo de 2013. Se utilizan como test de cribado el Short Portable Mental State Questionnaire (SPMSQ) de Pfeiffer y el Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) versión NORMACODERM de Blesa. Se definió deterioro cognitivo por SPMSQ ≥ 3 (para analfabetos ≥ 4) y/o MMSE ≤ 24.Resultados: Participaron en el estudio 729 personas. Se encontró que el 17,6% de los participantes (n = 128) presentaban resultados compatibles con deterioro cognitivo. Se determinó que dormir 9 o más horas diarias es causa o consecuencia y, por tanto, un factor de riesgo y/o de alarma en el desarrollo de deterioro cognitivo en personas mayores de 65 años. El ejercicio físico y pocas horas de sueño no obtuvo relación con el deterioro cognitivo.Conclusión: El cambio de hábitos de sueño en el anciano (pasar a dormir más horas) es una señal de alerta para estudiar la presencia de un posible deterioro cognitivo

Anysotropic relaxivity measurements of solubilized multiwall carbon nanotubes suspensions reveal molecular orientation

Trabajo presentado al 20th Annual Meeting & Exhibition International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, celebrado en Melbourne (Australia) del 5 al 11 de Mayo de 2012.Peer Reviewe

Continuous Packed Bed Reactor with Immobilized β-Galactosidase for Production of Galactooligosaccharides (GOS)

The β-galactosidase from Bacillus circulans was covalently attached to aldehyde-activated (glyoxal) agarose beads and assayed for the continuous production of galactooligosaccharides (GOS) in a packed-bed reactor (PBR). The immobilization was fast (1 h) and the activity of the resulting biocatalyst was 97.4 U/g measured with o-nitrophenyl-β-d-galactopyranoside (ONPG). The biocatalyst showed excellent operational stability in 14 successive 20 min reaction cycles at 45 °C in a batch reactor. A continuous process for GOS synthesis was operated for 213 h at 0.2 mL/min and 45 °C using 100 g/L of lactose as a feed solution. The efficiency of the PBR slightly decreased with time; however, the maximum GOS concentration (24.2 g/L) was obtained after 48 h of operation, which corresponded to 48.6% lactose conversion and thus to maximum transgalactosylation activity. HPAEC-PAD analysis showed that the two major GOS were the trisaccharide Gal-β(1→4)-Gal-β(1→4)-Glc and the tetrasaccharide Gal-β(1→4)-Gal-β(1→4)-Gal-β(1→4)-Glc. The PBR was also assessed in the production of GOS from milk as a feed solution. The stability of the bioreactor was satisfactory during the first 8 h of operation; after that, a decrease in the flow rate was observed, probably due to partial clogging of the column. This work represents a step forward in the continuous production of GOS employing fixed-bed reactors with immobilized β-galactosidases.This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BIO2013-48779-C4-1-R and BIO2016-76601-C3-1-R). We thank the support of COST-Action CM1303 on Systems Biocatalysis. P.S.-M. thanks the Spanish Ministry of Education for FPU Grant (FPU13/01185). We acknowledge support by the CSIC Open Access Publication Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI)