Metal-Free Modified Boron Nitride for Enhanced CO2 Capture

Porous boron nitride is a new class of solid adsorbent with applications in CO2 capture. In order to further enhance the adsorption capacities of materials, new strategies such as porosity tuning, element doping and surface modification have been taken into account. In this work, metal-free modification of porous boron nitride (BN) has been prepared by a structure directing agent via simple heat treatment under N2 flow. We have demonstrated that textural properties of BN play a pivotal role in CO2 adsorption behavior. Therefore, addition of a triblock copolymer surfactant (P123) has been adopted to improve the pore ordering and textural properties of porous BN and its influence on the morphological and structural properties of pristine BN has been characterized. The obtained BN-P123 exhibits a high surface area of 476 m2/g, a large pore volume of 0.83 cm3/g with an abundance of micropores. More importantly, after modification with P123 copolymer, the capacity of pure CO2 on porous BN has improved by about 34.5% compared to pristine BN (2.69 mmol/g for BN-P123 vs. 2.00 mmol/g for pristine BN under ambient condition). The unique characteristics of boron nitride opens up new routes for designing porous BN, which could be employed for optimizing CO2 adsorption

ANMCO Position Paper: diagnostic-therapeutic pathway in patients with hypercholesterolaemia and statin intolerance

Statins are a class of drugs used to lower total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol. Clinical trials performed over the last 25 years have shown that these agents are effective in improving cardiovascular outcomes in several different clinical settings. However, in some cases statin treatment may be associated with significant side effects and adverse reactions. The occurrence of these adverse events during statin therapy may cause discontinuation of treatment, and hence the impossibility of achieving recommended lipid goals. The clinical condition in which patients experience major unacceptable symptoms and/or develop laboratory abnormalities during statin therapy is defined as statin intolerance. This document outlines the diagnostic and therapeutic pathways for the clinical management of patients with hypercholesterolaemia and statin intoleranc

ANMCO Scientific Statement: clinical management of hypercholesterolaemia in patients with acute coronary syndromes

LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) reduction after Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS) is associated with a significant decrease in subsequent atherosclerotic cardiovascular events. Accordingly, international guidelines recommend a reduction of LDL-C below 70 mg/dL in ACS patients. Such a result can be effectively accomplished in most cases by using high intensity statins. In selected cases, the association with ezetimibe may be necessary in order to achieve recommended LDL-C targets. This document outlines management strategies that can be consistently implemented in clinical practice in order to achieve and maintain guidelines recommended therapeutic goals

Ex-LDH-based catalysts for CO2 conversion to methanol and dimethyl ether

CO2-derived methanol and dimethyl ether can play a very important role as fuels, energy carriers, and bulk chemicals. Methanol production from CO2 and renewable hydrogen is considered to be one of the most promising pathways to alleviate global warming. In turn, methanol could be subsequently dehydrated into DME; alternatively, one-step CO2 conversion to DME can be obtained by hydrogenation on bifunctional catalysts. In this light, four oxide catalysts with the same Cu and Zn content (Cu/Zn molar ratio = 2) were synthesized by calcining the corresponding CuZnAl LDH systems modified with Zr and/or Ce. The fresh ex-LDH catalysts were characterized in terms of composition, texture, structure, surface acidity and basicity, and reducibility. Structural and acid– base properties were also studied on H2-treated samples, on which specific metal surface area and dispersion of metallic Cu were determined as well. After in situ H2 treatment, the ex-LDH systems were tested as catalysts for the hydrogenation of CO2 to methanol at 250 °C and 3.0 MPa. In the same experimental conditions, CO2 conversion into dimethyl ether was studied on bifunctional catalysts obtained by physically mixing the ex-LDH hydrogenation catalysts with acid ferrierite or ZSM-5 zeolites. For both processes, the effect of the Al/Zr/Ce ratio on the products distribution was investigated

CO2 hydrogenation to methanol with an innovative Cu/Zn/Al/Zr catalyst: Experimental tests and process modeling

In this study, an innovative Cu/Zn/Al/Zr catalyst for the conversion of CO2 and H2 into methanol is tested at laboratory scale (0.5 g of catalyst into a cylindrical fixed bed reactor, with 9.1 mm internal diameter). Fourteen experimental tests are performed under isothermal conditions (T = 250 °C), covering a range of pressure (3.0–7.0 MPa), Gas Hourly Space Velocity (4000–13,000 h-1) and H2/CO2 molar ratio (between 3 and 6) relevant to industrial applications, with or without CO in the feed mixture, with flow-rates ranging between 200 and 650 NmL min-1. Based on the established Graaf’s kinetic model, new kinetic parameters are calibrated and a plug-flow model of the isothermal reactor is implemented and simulated in Aspen Plus. A reasonable agreement between experimental data and calibrated model is achieved, with deviations lower than 10% of the measured flow rates for each species in the product stream. CO2 conversion up to 26% and methanol yields up to 13% are obtained during the test campaign (test run #12). The model represents a valid tool for future research or engineering studies targeting the design and performance assessment of demo/full-scale CO2-to-methanol synthesis processes based on the Cu/Zn/Al/Zr catalyst introduced in this paper

On the role of the nature and density of acid sites on mesostructured aluminosilicates dehydration catalysts for dimethyl ether production from CO2

In this work, we designed four different mesostructured acidic materials to be used as methanol dehydration catalysts for the one-pot CO2-to-DME process, in the form of physical mixtures with a Cu/ZnO/Al2O3-based commercial redox catalyst (CZA). The studied systems consist in a mesostructured gamma-Al2O3 and three mesostructured aluminosilicates (namely Al-MCM-41, Al-SBA-15, and Al-SBA-16) with the same Si/Al ratio (= 15) but significantly different textural properties. The main goal of this work is to understand how the textural features can influence the acidic properties (typology, amount, strength, surface density) and, consequently, how catalytic performances can be correlated with acidic features. On this note, we found that the systems presenting both Bronsted and Lewis sites (namely the three aluminosilicates) show much better catalytic performances than gamma-Al2O3, that only features Lewis sites, thus implying that Bronsted sites are more active towards methanol dehydration than Lewis sites. The three aluminosilicates, despite presenting comparable amounts of Bronsted sites, show significantly different performances in terms of selectivity to DME; particularly, Al-SBA-16, the system with the lowest surface area, proved to be the most efficient catalyst. This finding led us to infer that, besides Bronsted acidity, a high surface density of acid sites is a key factor to obtain a high dehydration activity; being methanol dehydration a bi-molecular reaction, the close proximity of two acid sites would indeed favor the kinetics of the process

FOOD SAFETY AND PROCESS HYGIENE CRITERIONS ON SHEEP CARCASSES

The hygienic status and the presence of some pathogens (Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes e Salmonella spp.) at slaughterhouses was evaluated in different matrix of sheep and lambs (carcass surface, faeces, fleeces and mesenteric lymph nodes) according to the Com. Reg. (EC) No 2073/2005. The 48% of sheep and 68.9% of lamb sampled carcasses resulted allocated into the marginal category for Aerobic colony count, while the 28% and 42.2% respectively were allocated into unacceptable category for Enterobacteriaceae. S.aureus was isolated more frequently in fleeces (11.5%), carcasses (12.6%) of lambs than sheep. L. monocytogenes was found in fleeces and carcass of two sheep and in faeces of four lambs, while Salmonella spp. was detected only in sheep carcasses of a single plant