The Phase Composition of Electric Furnace Slag

Elementary and phase composition as well as micrography of the electric furnace slag were examined. The base of slag is made from phases containing Fe, Mn and Ca. Grains differ in size and shape, they cling together to form bigger or smaller agglomerates, depending on separated fractions. Relative distribution of identified phases in separated fractions is presented and the possibility of phase separation by means of successive fragmentation and sieve analysis was noticed. The slag defined in that way could find application in cement production and construction industry. The electric furnace slag deposits which pollute the water and ground as well as disfigure the environment can thus be reduced

Generation of coherent two-color pulses at the two adjacent harmonics in a seeded free-electron laser

The growing requirements of pump-probe techniques and nonlinear optics experiments greatly promote the studies of two-color free-electron lasers (FELs). We propose a new method to generate coherent two-color pulses in a high-gain harmonic generation (HGHG) FEL. In this scheme, an initial tilted electron beam is sent though the modulator and dispersive section of an HGHG FEL to generate the bunching at harmonics of the seed laser. Then a transverse gradient undulator (TGU) is adopted as the radiator and in such radiator, only two separated fractions of the tilted beam will resonate at two adjacent harmonics of the seed laser and are enabled to emit the coherent two-color pulses simultaneously. The time separation between the two pulses are on the order of hundreds of femtoseconds, and can be precisely controlled by varying the tilted amplitude of the electron beam and/or the transverse gradient of the TGU radiator. Numerical simulations confirm the validity and feasibility of this scheme in the EUV waveband

An examination of the putative glucose tolerance factor activity of amino acid and peptide fractions isolated from brewer's yeast : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Chemistry at Massey University

The first report of the possible existance of a glucose tolerance factor (GTF) was made by Mertz and Schwarz (1955) who noticed that a dietary additive, termed factor 3, isolated from an enzymatic casein hydrolysate (Schwarz (1952)), maintained normal glucose removal rates in diabetic­ like rats. These rats were the subject of a study on the development of dietary necrotic liver degeneration. The immediate cause of death,,in these rats, could be demonstrated to be severe hypoglycaemia (Mertz and Schwarz (1955)) that initially manifested itself, during the latent period of degeneration, as impairment of excess blood glucose removal. The diet used to induce the development of necrotic liver degeneration was a semi-purified, vitamin E-free, ration of 30% Torula yeast which also represented the sole protein source. The vitamin E prevented the development of necrotic liver degeneration but did not affect the removal of excess blood glucose. In 1957, Schwarz and Mertz reported that the factor 3, in itself, was not responsible for the maintainance of normal glucose removal rates but rather that it contained an active fraction separable by fractionation procedures involving evaporation, in vacuo, of a NaCl-containing, factor 3 concentrate. The NaCl was removed by filtration and the GTF activity was found to be present in the separated salt fraction, from which it could be removed by treatment with 65% ethanol. A further claim was made that this separated substance, now termed the glucose tolerance factor (GTF), not only prevented but cured impairment of glucose removal when administered in the diet and that the initial glucose impairment observed was not a symptom of necrotic liver degeneration but a result of a dietary deficiency. GTF prepara­ tions were reported (Mertz and Schwarz (1959)) to be routinely obtained from brewer's yeast as well as acid hydrolysates of dried, defatted, pork kidney powder. [From Introduction

Modelling higher heating value of different separated fractions from municipal and construction and demolition wastes

Higher heating value (HHV) is an important property of biomass and wastes used to evaluate their potential conversion to useful thermal or electric energy. Because the measurement of this property requires expensive resources and is somewhat time-consuming, many works focused their attention on the determination of mathematic models relating the HHV with the composition of lignocellulosic biomass or other fuel materials, such as their ultimate and proximate analysis. These models can supply appropriate estimates of HHV but only for analogous materials, so they should not be used to compare samples with marked differences in composition or physical and chemical properties. In this work, 9 different separated fractions of municipal and construction and demolition wastes (wood, paper/card, plastics, sewage sludge and mixtures among them) were used to deduce a mathematical expression relating HHV with their contents of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and ash. For this purpose, HHV's, proximate and ultimate analysis were experimentally obtained and the results used to create three different expressions applying linear regression methods. The best expression was selected and validated by comparing deviations among the calculated results and those retrieved from the literature and from experimental measurements regarding different wastes. It was concluded that the best expression was HHV (MJ/kg db) = 0.3845×C+0.8831×H- 29.1217×S-0.0630×O-1.0063×N+0.3888×ASH-0.2546 (with C, H, S, O, N and ASH in wt% db, considering atomic ratios O/C and H/C within 0.0O/C1.2 and 0.1H/C0.2), giving an average absolute error of 8.5 % and an average bias error of -1.6 %. However, appreciable deviations may be found when estimating the HHV of polyurethane, paper/card, mixtures of paper/plastic and sewage sludge and thus the application of the expression for these materials is questionable.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

IN VITRO ANTI OXIDANT ACTIVITY OF CHROMATOGRAPHICALLY SEPARATED FRACTIONS FROM THE LEAVES OF AGERATUM CONYZOIDES L

Synthetic anti oxidants are not safe for human health. It is often claimed that they may develop carcinoma in human body. Therefore, search for natural anti oxidants was going on and extended up to plant sources. Many medicinal plants are known having anti oxidant activity. Aageratum conyzoides Linn. is one such plant. In order to isolate anti oxidant compound (s) from the leaves of A. conyzoides L. the present study was undertaken. In isolation study silica gel G column chromatography of the powdered leaves of A.conyzoides L. was done when six fractions were separated. In vitro anti oxidant activity of these six fractions was measured by superoxide anion generation with help of xanthine-xanthine oxidase assay and with linoleic acid peroxidation assay as well as DPPH photometric assay. Results showed that fourth fraction had maximum anti oxidant activity. Inhibitory activities of xanthine oxidation, linoleic acid peroxidation and scavenging capacity of DPPH by the fourth fraction were respectively 96%, 97% and 96% whereas for other five fractions inhibitory activities were quite low. Anti oxidant activity is known to be associated with compounds like total phenol, flavonoids, ascorbic acid and carotenoids. These compounds were estimated in the separated six fractions after chromatography of powdered leaves of A. conyzoides L. Results showed that fourth fraction had total phenol, flavonoids, ascorbic acid and carotenoids in the concentrations of 58 mg/mg dry wt, 88 mg/mg dry wt, 22 mg/g dry wt and 25 mg/g dry wt respectively. The amounts were significantly higher in comparison to that of other fractions. In vitro anti oxidant activity of the fourth fraction was, therefore, related with high amounts of total phenol, flavonoids, ascorbic acid and carotenoids. Present study indicated that the separated fourth fraction after silica gel G column chromatography of powdered leaves of A.conyzoides L. may be used as natural anti oxidant

Microbial Community of Kefir and its Impact on the Gastrointestinal Microbiome in Health and Disease

Kefir is a fermented dairy product, created by fermentation of milk by bacteria and yeasts. Kefir is the most common traditional non-sweetened fermented dairy beverage in the Baltic countries. Whole kefir and specific fractions and individual organisms isolated from kefir provide a multitude of health benefits, including regulation of composition of the gut microbiome. This review aims to summarise the available data about influence of kefir consumption on the gut microbiome in healthy individuals and to highlight the effects that kefir consumption as well as separated fractions of kefir can have in disease states via modulation of the host microbiome.publishersversionPeer reviewe

The impact of concentrated pig production in Flanders : a spatial analysis

Historically concentrated livestock production and, consequently, manure production and management in Belgium have resulted in severe environmental impacts. One major impact, nitrate leaching from soil to surface water, is being tackled through the European Nitrates Directive by imposing strict fertilization standards. However, another significant impact of manure management is the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHG - CO2, CH4, NH3 and N2O) into the air, thereby contributing to global warming. Calls have been made to reduce the high manure pressure and related environmental effects in Belgium by relocating and more evenly spreading livestock production. This paper explores the spatial spreading of CO2-equivalent emissions from livestock production in Belgium and attempt to answer the following question: ‘Can spatial reallocation of livestock production in Belgium reduce the impact of GHG emissions?’. This question is translated into several research objectives: 1) conduct an economic (cost minimization) and environmental (GHG minimization) optimization for 3 manure management scenarios, 2) determine the main differences between both approaches, and 3) determine the marginal spatial impact on CO2 emissions of a decrease in manure pressure (i.e., increased spreading of pig production). To conduct the analysis, a model was developed that builds on the spatial mathematical programming multi-agent manure allocation model developed by Van der Straeten et al. (2010). Three options for manure management are inserted: transport of raw manure from nutrient excess to nutrient deficit areas, biological treatment of manure (manure processing) and manure separation. The model optimizes, at municipal level, either the cost-efficiency, either the environmental effect of the manure market in Belgium based on Belgian fertilization standards. While cost-efficiency is calculated based on transport distances and cost of manure separation and processing, GHG emissions, and hence, carbon footprint, are determined based on a life cycle analysis type calculation. The results of the model simulations show that, while the economic optimum is reached by maximizing the transport of raw manure until fertilization standards are fulfilled and subsequently separating and processing the excess manure, the environmental optimum, from a carbon footprint point of view, is reached by separating all manure as this option has the lowest CO2 emissions, mainly due to the limited manure storage time. Moreover, the analyses indicate that rearrangement of the spatial spreading of livestock production in Belgium will not substantially decrease CO2 emissions. As manure storage is the main contributor to the carbon footprint, solutions should rather lie in changing these storage systems

Determination of solid mass fraction in partially frozen hydrocarbon fuels

Filtration procedures alone are insufficient to determine the amounts of crystalline solid in a partially frozen hydrocarbon distillate fraction. This is due to the nature of the solidification process by which a large amount of liquid becomes entrapped within an interconnected crystalline structure. A technique has been developed to supplement filtration methods with an independent determination of the amount of liquid in the precipitate thereby revealing the actual value of mass percent crystalline solid, %S. A non-crystallizing dye is injected into the fuel and used as a tracer during the filtration. The relative concentrations of the dye in the filtrate and precipitate fractions is subsequently detected by a spectrophotometric comparison. The filtration apparatus was assembled so that the temperature of the sample is recorded immediately above the filter. Also, a second method of calculation has been established which allows significant reduction in test time while retaining acceptable accuracy of results. Data have been obtained for eight different kerosene range hydrocarbon fuels

The analysis of various size, visually selected and density and magnetically separated fractions of Luna 16 and 20 samples

Samples of Luna 16 and 20 have been separated according to size, visual appearance, density, and magnetic susceptibility. Selected aliquots were examined in eight British laboratories. The studies included mineralogy and petrology, selenochronology, magnetic characteristics, Mossbauer spectroscopy, oxygen isotope ratio determinations, cosmic ray track and thermoluminescence investigations, and carbon chemistry measurements. Luna 16 and 20 are typically mare and highland soils, comparing well with their Apollo counterparts, Apollo 11 and 16, respectively. Both soils are very mature (high free iron, carbide, and methane and cosmogenic Ar), while Luna 16, but not Luna 20, is characterized by a high content of glassy materials. An aliquot of anorthosite fragments, handpicked from Luna 20, had a gas retention age of about 4.3 plus or minus 0.1 Gy