Sustainable and environmental catalysis

Assente in quanto editorial

Maximizing the antioxidant capacity of Padina pavonica by choosing the right drying and extraction methods

Marine algae are becoming an interesting source of biologically active compounds with a promising application as nutraceuticals, functional food ingredients, and therapeutic agents. The effect of drying (freeze-drying, oven-drying, and shade-drying) and extraction methods (shaking at room temperature, shaking in an incubator at 60 \ub0C, ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE), and microwave-assisted extraction (MAE)) on the total phenolics content (TPC), total flavonoids content (TFC), and total tannins content (TTC), as well as antioxidant capacity of the water/ethanol extracts from Padina pavonica were investigated. The TPC, TFC, and TTC values of P. pavonica were in the range from 0.44 \ub1 0.03 to 4.32 \ub1 0.15 gallic acid equivalents in mg/g (mg GAE/g) dry algae, from 0.31 \ub1 0.01 to 2.87 \ub1 0.01 mg QE/g dry algae, and from 0.32 \ub1 0.02 to 10.41 \ub1 0.62 mg CE/g dry algae, respectively. The highest TPC was found in the freeze-dried sample in 50% ethanol, extracted by MAE (200 W, 60 \ub0C, and 5 min). In all cases, freeze-dried samples extracted with ethanol (both 50% and 70%) had the higher antioxidant activity, while MAE as a green option reduces the extraction time without the loss of antioxidant activity in P. pavonica

Kumulativni traumatski poremećaji gornjih udova u radnika na poljoprivrednom dobru

The work associated with repetitive efforts and inadequate resting periods, strong physical exertion, awkward postures or static positioning exposes workers to the risk of cumulative trauma disorders of the upper limbs. These risk factors are present in many agricultural activities. A study was carried out among workers on an agricultural farm. The workers\u27 histories were taken and they were given periodical medical check-ups. The presence of upper limb disorders was shown in a group of workers. A sample of 42 people was selected for the study by means of specific tests: electromyography, ultrasonography and laser-doppler ftowmetry. The tests showed a high incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome and microcirculation disorders. The study confirmed that electromyography, ultrasonography and/or laser-doppler flowmetry are highly useful tools for identifying cumulative trauma disorders.Pokreti koji se ponavljaju, neprimjereni odmori, teška fizička opterećenja te nefiziološki položaji tijela dovode do povećanog rizika razvoja bolesti kumulativne traume gornjih udova. Ovi čimbenici rizika prisutni su u mnogim poljoprivrednim djelatnostima. Od 74 radnika na poljoprivrednom dobru podvrgnuta periodskim pregledima, u 42 je primijenjena elektromiografija, ultrasonografija i mjerenje krvnog protoka laser-doppler metodom. Testovima je utvrđena visoka učestalost sindroma karpalnog tunela i poremećaja mikrocirkulacije. Ispitivanje je potvrdilo da su eiektromiografija, ultrasonografija i/ili laser-doppler mjerenje krvnog protoka veoma korisne metode u dijagnostici bolesti kumulativne traume

Acetonitrile from Bioethanol Ammoxidation : Process Design from the Grass-Roots and Life Cycle Analysis

The growing interest for new routes to obtain acetonitrile led to the development of catalysts active toward the ammoxidation of various substrates. Among these, a C2 molecule such as ethanol represents a good choice in terms of atom economy and, being renewable, sets the basis for a long-term sustainable process. This paper describes a fully integrated, newly designed process for the production of acetonitrile from bioethanol, currently not present in the literature. The target is the production and purification of 10 kg/h of acetonitrile, unit of production used for calculations, obtained from ethanol, ammonia, and air as raw materials. All the byproducts, mainly ammonium bicarbonate and sodium cyanide, are considered marketable chemicals and represent an added value, instead of a disposal issue. Their optimized recovery is included in this flowsheet as a basis for the future economic assessment of the system. The process consumes CO2 without its direct emission. In principle, all the carbon atoms and 90% of the nitrogen atoms are turned into reaction products, and the main loss is gaseous N2. The process design has been performed by means of the Aspen PLUS process simulator, on the basis of literature data and other experimental results. In addition, for an evaluation of the potential benefits of the innovative biobased route, a life cycle analysis was carried out including all the stages involved in the bioacetonitrile production (from raw materials extraction up to the gate plant). The results were then compared with those achieved for the traditional fossil route (SOHIO process), showing a sensible decrease of the environmental burdens in terms of nonrenewable resources and damage to ecosystems (e.g., toxicity, climate change, etc.). Finally, a simplified sensitivity analysis was carried out by substituting the starting raw material for the production of bioethanol (corn) with other materials conventionally used worldwide, such as sugar cane and wood. The latter option seems to make the system more competitive in terms of carbon neutrality, thanks to the usage of the residual lignocellulosic fraction available on the market

Metal-Support Cooperative Effects in Au/VPO for the Aerobic Oxidation of Benzyl Alcohol to Benzyl Benzoate

This paper studies the cooperative effect of Au nanoparticles deposited on vanadyl pyrophosphate oxide (VPO) in the liquid phase oxidation of benzyl alcohol. VPO was prepared using the classical method by thermally treating VOHPO4 center dot 0.5H(2)O precursor in reacting atmosphere at 420 degrees C for a period of 72 h. Au nanoparticles were deposited by incipient wetness method. The catalysts were characterized by means of XRD, TEM, XPS and Raman. The bulk VPO catalyst contains vanadyl pyrophosphate phase ((VO)(2)P2O7), and a small amount of VOPO4. The catalytic system exhibits a high activity in the base-free liquid phase oxidation of alcohols compared to Au on activated carbon, classic catalyst used for this type of reaction. Au/VPO showed a high peculiar selectivity to benzyl benzoate (76%), an important product used in the pharmaceutical and perfume industries. This behavior might be ascribed to the presence of strong acid sites of VPO, as determined by liquid phase titration. Stability tests performed on Au/VPO showed a deactivation of 10% after the first run, but a constant conversion along the following five cycles. This phenomenon can be attributed to the increase of mean Au particle size (from 19.1 to 23.4 nm) after recycling tests as well as the partial leaching of Au and V in the reaction media. Moreover, XRD evidenced a modification in the VPO structure with the partial formation of VOHPO4 center dot 0.5H(2)O phase

Pathogenetic and diagnostic significance of microRNA deregulation in peripheral T-cell lymphoma not otherwise specified

Peripheral T-cell lymphomas not otherwise specified (PTCLs/NOS) are rare and aggressive tumours whose molecular pathogenesis and diagnosis are still challenging. The microRNA (miRNA) profile of 23 PTCLs/NOS was generated and compared with that of normal T-lymphocytes (CD4+, CD8+, naive, activated). The differentially expressed miRNA signature was compared with the gene expression profile (GEP) of the same neoplasms. The obtained gene patterns were tested in an independent cohort of PTCLs/NOS. The miRNA profile of PTCLs/NOS then was compared with that of 10 angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphomas (AITLs), 6 anaplastic large-cell lymphomas (ALCLs)/ALK+ and 6 ALCLs/ALK - . Differentially expressed miRNAs were validated in an independent set of 20 PTCLs/NOS, 20 AITLs, 19 ALCLs/ALK - and 15 ALCLs/ALK+. Two hundred and thirty-six miRNAs were found to differentiate PTCLs/NOS from activated T-lymphocytes. To assess which miRNAs impacted on GEP, a multistep analysis was performed, which identified all miRNAs inversely correlated to different potential target genes. One of the most discriminant miRNAs was selected and its expression was found to affect the global GEP of the tumours. Moreover, two sets of miRNAs were identified distinguishing PTCL/NOS from AITL and ALCL/ALK - , respectively. The diagnostic accuracy of this tool was very high (83.54%) and its prognostic value validated

A Feature Reduction Strategy for Enabling Lightweight Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring on Edge Devices

Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) implies disaggregating the power consumption of individual appliances from a single power measurement point. Recent approaches use a mix of low and high-frequency features, but real-time NILM on low-cost and resource-constrained smart meters is still challenging due to the computing effort needed for feature extraction and classification. In this paper, we present a thorough survey on low, mid, and high-frequency features for enabling the deployment of NILM algorithms on edge-devices. We compare four different supervised learning techniques on different use-cases. Moreover, we developed a novel Microcontroller (MCU) based Smart Measurement Node for collecting measurements, providing computational capabilities to perform NILM on-the-edge. Experimental results demonstrate that by selecting the proper features, a robust disaggregation model for real-time load monitoring is feasible on our MCU-based meter with an accuracy of 95.99%, relying on merely 9.4kB of memory requirements and 16K MACs operation

Food safety - Module 2: Traditional and new tool for improving food safety - Unit 1: Traditional and new tool to improve food safety.

The general objectives of the unit are related to the exposed lectures. The first step is give an introductory point of view about non microbial degradation, that in some condition have a great influence on food preservation. This question together with the content of module 1, complete the base necessary for a good comprehension and application of food preservation techniques. In lecture number two are described simple preservation method which require low technology content, but with high efficiency rate. In this case the objective is stress on the importance of the result: a good result is not always linked to a modern technology. In the third lecture the attention is focused on industrial and new technology. This last group of method open new frontier regarding new kind of food products, mostly healthy products, that can go encounter new consumers exigencies