Engineering Commons^™

Production Of Activated Carbon From Barley Biochar Precursor, Javier Pallarés, Ana González-Cencerrado, Inmaculada Ramos

BIO-CHAR: Production, Characterization and Applications

Agricultural production must be directed towards "sustainable agriculture", which preserves natural resources, reduces GHG emissions and maintains biodiversity. In this context, biochar is considered a product of great interest in agriculture since several studies have demonstrated its effectiveness in increasing agricultural yields, increasing the water retention capacity and nutrients in the soil, increasing the development of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (AMF), and ultimately improving the efficiency of fertilizers, thus reducing their use and reducing enviromental pollution.

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Biochar Production Through Hydrothermal Carbonization: Energy Efficiency And Cost Analysis Of An Industrial-Scale Plant, Michela Lucian,, Fabio Merzari, Luca Fiori

BIO-CHAR: Production, Characterization and Applications

Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is an induced coalification process that converts raw biomass into a coal-like product, called hydrochar, characterized by high carbon content and high calorific value. This type of thermo-chemical conversion, also referred to as wet pyrolysis (or wet torrefaction), can be applied to a variety of non-traditional sources such as the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, wet agricultural residues, sewage sludge. Unlike traditional dry pyrolysis, the HTC process allows for the treatment of substrates with elevated moisture content, up to 75%–90%, without requiring a drying pre-treatment step.

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Pyrolysis Of Residues From Well-Established Biochemical Processes For The Production Of Biochar, Devon Barry, Cedric Briens, Franco Berruti

BIO-CHAR: Production, Characterization and Applications

The main objective of this work is to use pyrolysis for the production of biochar from the residues of well-established biochemical processes. The residues that were selected come from two major conversion processes: biogas digesters, and wastewater treatment facilities. These processes produce unconverted lignin-rich residues, made of biomass components that are refractory to biochemical conversion. Pyrolysis is an aggressive thermochemical conversion process that is ideally suited to such residues. The desired biochar characteristics were determined by the specific needs of each industrial partner. The desired traits for the biochar obtained from sewage sludge were the capture, and stabilization of heavy …

Investigation Of Innovative And Conventional Pyrolysis Of Ligneous And Herbaceous Biomasses For Biochar Production, Marina Morando, Silvia Fiore, Cedric Briens, Franco Berruti

BIO-CHAR: Production, Characterization and Applications

Pyrolysis is a thermochemical process involving the thermolysis of carbon-based materials in absence of an oxidizing agent. Adjusting the operating conditions, in order to maximize the gaseous, liquid or solid products, may optimize pyrolysis process. This work investigates the performances of three laboratory-scale reactors on the grounds of the quantity and quality of the biochar obtained from different biomasses. Three types of biomass were fed to each reactor: two ligneous (rubberwood and eucalyptus) and one herbaceous (Phragmites australis). A novel reactor developed at ICFAR, the Jiggled Bed Reactor (JBR) was employed in slow pyrolysis mode.

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Biochar Production Through Slow Pyrolysis Of Different Biomass Materials: Seeking The Best Operating Conditions, Joan J. Manyà, Manuel Azuara, José A. Manso

BIO-CHAR: Production, Characterization and Applications

In the last years, special attention has been focused on analyzing the effect of pyrolysis conditions (mainly peak temperature) on the yield and properties of produced biochar. Given that the nature of biomass plays a key role in the pyrolysis process, it becomes really difficult to establish generic trends and correlations, which can be used for any biomass feedstock to predict the properties of derived biochar. Thus, more experimental studies focused on a given biomass source are still needed with the aim of providing reliable data for further research goals. In addition, a number of techniques have been proposed to …

Biochar From Microwave Pyrolysis Of Selected Feedstocks, Tanisha M. Dreise, Daya R. Nhuchhen, Muhammad T. Afzal

BIO-CHAR: Production, Characterization and Applications

This is a brief summary of work carried out by a team of researchers to produce biochar using microwave pyrolysis system developed at Bioenergy, Bioproducts Research Lab (BBRL), at UNB. Various feedstocks such as corn stalk, spruce, maple, switchgrass, and wood pellets were used to produce biochar. A batch type microwave reactor with a frequency of 2.45 GHz and a power generator of 3 kW was used in the pyrolysis experiments. The amount of biochar obtained depends on the microwave pyrolysis conditions and type of feedstock. For corn stalk briquettes, the yield of biochar ranged from 30.9 to 41.1 wt%. …

A Three-Stage Thermochemical Conversion Process For The Production Of Biochar, Alessandro Scova, Vander Tumiatti, Francesco Lenzi

BIO-CHAR: Production, Characterization and Applications

Within a French consortium of four companies and five laboratories from two scientific groups, Sea Marconi is one of the industrial partners of the LORVER project (www.lorver.org). The project aims at the sustainable redevelopment of brownfield deriving from the deindustrialization of the Lorraine region (France) by soil reconstruction, cultivation of different non-food biomasses and their final conversion into valuable outputs (biochar, bioenergy, natural fibers, metals).

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Production And Characterization Of Slow Pyrolysis Biochar From Lignin-Rich Digested Stillage From 2nd Generation Bioethanol Production, Frederik Ronsse, Dane Dickinson, Wolter Prins

BIO-CHAR: Production, Characterization and Applications

Lignin-rich stillage from 2nd generation bioethanol production is a unique feedstock for slow pyrolysis and biochar production, as it contains high amounts of lignin (62 wt. % d.b) and ash (9.97 wt. % d.b) next to some residual cellulose and hemicellulose. As lignin is known to result in higher char and char-C yields compared to regular lignocellulosic feedstock, the suitability of a lignin-containing residue, obtained from a 2nd generation bio-ethanol pilot run using short rotation poplar, was subjected to anaerobic digestion for biogas production followed by slow pyrolysis of the digestate for the production of biochar.

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Woody And Agricultural Biomass Diversity In Torrefaction: A Complete Study In Solid Conversion And Volatiles Formation On Tga-Gcms, María González Martínez, Capucine Dupont, Xuan Mi Meyer, Christophe Gourdon

BIO-CHAR: Production, Characterization and Applications

Nowadays, there is an increasing awareness on the importance of biomass waste as a renewable source of energy, materials and chemicals. In this context, the European project MOBILE FLIP aims at developing and demonstrating mobile conversion processes suitable with various underexploited agro- and forest based biomass resources in order to produce energy carriers, materials and chemicals. One of these processes is torrefaction, which consists in a mild thermal treatment, occurring typically between 200 and 300°C during a few tens of minutes in a default-oxygen atmosphere.

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Process Considerations For Protein A Affinity Capture, Virus Inactivation, And Linked Polishing Steps In Multi-Column Continuous Purification Of Monoclonal Antibodies, Robert Mierendorf, Tom Van Oosbree, Anthony Grabski, William Wessel, Emily Schirmer

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing III

Multi-column continuous chromatography (MCC) offers significant economic advantages over traditional batch methods for purification of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), including increased resin capacity utilization, smaller columns, reduced buffer consumption, and faster process time. The Protein A capture step is a primary target to apply MCC due to its high cost, which is driven even higher as improvements in upstream processing have produced a steady increase in mAb titers. In this study we consider the key factors in designing an MCC process that optimizes productivity. Process design begins with determination of the feed duration, which is governed by the mAb titer, column …

Exploring A New Class Of Effective Interactions In Crowded Environment, Nicoletta Gnan, Nicolas Ariel Garcia, Emanuela Zaccarelli

Association in Solution IV

Colloidal suspensions are complex fluids involving many length and time scales. In order to make progress in their investigation, we often rely on coarse-grained models giving rise to effective potentials among colloidal particles, where some degrees of freedom can be traced out. In general, these amount to implicitly include the effect of the solvent and of co-solute small particles in a description for the large colloids only. By this route, it has been shown that effective forces can deeply modify the phase diagram of colloidal particles, starting with the pioneering case of depletion interactions [1]. More recently, colloidal effective interactions …

On The Stability Of Metal Nanoparticles Synthesized By Laser Ablation In Liquids, Gerardo Palazzo, Marcella Dell’Aglio, Gabriele Valenza, Alessandro De Giacomo

Association in Solution IV

Nanoparticles (NPs) synthesized through chemical routes are stabilized by a surface layer of capping agents.

These molecules, beside avoid the infinite growth of the solid phase, impart steric or electrostatic repulsive inter- particle interactions.

The technique known as “Laser ablation in liquid” (LAL) is an alternative technique to synthesize capping agents-free metal nanoparticles.1 LAL involves focused laser pulsed irradiation of a bulk metal target in a liquid and consist of four stages . Laser-matter interaction, plasma induction, cavitation bubble formation and particle release in solution. Strikingly, LAL leads to the formation of very stable “naked” NPs that are long standing …

Conference Program, Ulf Olsson, Norman Wagner, Anand Yethiraj

Association in Solution IV

No abstract provided.

Multisequence Algorithm For Coarse-Grained Biomolecular Simulations: Exploring The Sequence-Structure Relationship Of Proteins, Adekunle Aina, Stefan Wallin

Association in Solution IV

Many biologically motivated problems naturally call for the investigation and comparison of molecular variants, such as determining the mechanisms of specificity in biomolecular interactions or the mechanisms of molecular evolution. We consider a generalized ensemble algorithm for coarse-grained simulations of biomolecules which allows the thermodynamic behavior of two or more sequences to be determined in a single multisequence run. By carrying out a random walk in sequence space, the method also enhances conformational sampling. Escape from local energy minima is accelerated by visiting sequences for which the minima are shallower or absent. We test the method on an intermediate-resolution coarse-grained …

Compact Cell Culture Imaging System Using Fourier Ptychographic Microscopy, Daniel Martin, Jinho Kim, Changhuei Yang

Advances in Optics for Biotechnology, Medicine and Surgery XV [2017]

The ability to obtain image data of multiple cell cultures simultaneously over a long-term period can provide researchers with a wealth of information. However, commercial systems rely on conventional microscopes, which are limited by their space-bandwidth product (SBP) [1]. Additionally, existing solutions that address the SBP limitation, are not conducive to well-plate imaging, which are an in-vitro culturing standard [2]. Using the benefits of Fourier ptychographic microscopy (FPM), these physical limitations can be transformed into problems that can be solved in the digital domain [3]. Our lab has demonstrated a compact, six-well plate imaging system, which is small enough to …

Frequency Domain Diffuse Optical Tomography With A Single Source And Detector Via High- Speed Hypocycloid Scanning, Matthew B. Applegate, Darren Roblyer

Advances in Optics for Biotechnology, Medicine and Surgery XV [2017]

Diffuse Optical Imaging (DOI) relies on the fact that near infrared light (600-1000 nm) is strongly scattered in biological tissue, and weakly absorbed by tissue chromophores such as blood, fat, water, and melanin. In frequency domain DOI, intensity modulated light is introduced into the tissue and the observed absorption and phase changes enable absolute concentrations of these chromophores to be calculated. These concentrations provide valuable insight into tissue metabolic activity that have proven useful for a variety of clinical outcomes from exercise physiology to predicting tumor response to treatment.

Diffuse Optical Tomography (DOT) is an extension of DOI that allows …

Tumor Detection And Treatment By Means Of Thermography And Laser Irradiation, Euiheon Chung, Gyungseok Oh, Su Woong Yoo

Advances in Optics for Biotechnology, Medicine and Surgery XV [2017]

While passive thermal imaging of temperature difference between tumor and neighboring tissue provides limited contrast, active thermography with external thermal modulation may provide higher contrast presumably due to the distinct thermal response from the tumor tissue. We have investigated physiologically relevant parameters such as response rate with respect to thermal modulation and relaxation time. This new imaging modality in the infrared regime may prove useful as a label-free and non-invasive screening tool. On the other hand, we propose a novel use of controlled thermal injury from non-ablative fractional laser irradiation for early treatment of tumor growth with a fiber-based thulium …

Conference Program, Peter So, Kate Bechtel, Ivo Vellekoop, Michael Choma

Advances in Optics for Biotechnology, Medicine and Surgery XV [2017]

No abstract provided.

The Microbial Antibodies Secretion Expression Platform With Scale Down Fermentors, Jen-Wei Chang, Wei-Kuang Chi, Neng-Hsien Chang, Wei-Hong Chen, Yi-Hua Huang, Chih-Hsi Fan

Biochemical and Molecular Engineering XX

Therapeutic antibodies have become one of the most effective therapeutics for human diseases such as cancer, inflammation and viral infection. The production of antibody-based drugs using microbial expression systems is more cost effective with ease of gene manipulation compared to mammalian expression systems. In our team, antibody fragments (ex: BsAb, scFv and Fab) were produced from methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris secretion expression system with the AOX1 as driven promoter or E. coli secretion expression system. To achieve high production yield for both system, we investigated fermentation parameter such as base medium, induction medium, induction condition, feeding strategy and pH. For …

Conference Program, Wilfred Chen, Nicole Borth, Stefanos Grammatikos

Biochemical and Molecular Engineering XX

No abstract provided.

Application Of Phage Display And Plasmid Display To Broaden The Specificity Of Human Fbs1 For Capture Of N-Glycosylated Peptides, James C. Samuelson

Biochemical and Molecular Engineering XX

The objective of this study was to develop a method for selective and comprehensive enrichment of N-linked glycopeptides to facilitate biomarker discovery. The natural function of human Fbs1 is to bind misfolded N-linked glycoproteins by recognition of the common pentasaccharide core motif (Man3GlcNAc2) of the N-glycan. We show that Fbs1 is able to bind diverse types of N-linked glycomolecules, however, wild-type Fbs1 preferentially binds high mannose containing glycans. To reduce the bias during N-glycomolecule enrichment experiments, we isolated Fbs1 variants with altered specificity through mutagenesis and plasmid display selection. Five cycles of E. coli propagation and in vitro panning against …

Visions For The Field By A Pioneer, Vladimir Mironov

Biofabrication for Hierarchical in Vitro Tissue Models

Only Presentation No Abstract

Biofabrication Using Recombinant Spider Silk Proteins As A Biomaterial, Tamara B. Aigner, Elise K. Desimone, Thomas Scheibel

Biofabrication for Hierarchical in Vitro Tissue Models

Biofabrication for applications in regenerative medicine is a rapidly expanding field. Remarkable about this approach compared to traditional approaches is its feasibility for larger scale production at high quality and reproducibility. However, there is a lack of process-compatible materials for biofabrication due to the need for mild, aqueous processing conditions. More specifically, the solvents used must have neutral pH, and salts in proper osmolality, temperatures used cannot be too high or low, and so forth. The recombinant spider-silk protein eADF4(C16) (engineered Araneus diadematus fibroin 4) is biocompatible, biodegradable and hypoallergenic and can be provided in large quantities with consistent material …

Conference Program, Jürgen Groll, Jos Malda

Biofabrication for Hierarchical in Vitro Tissue Models

No abstract provided.

Thin Film Transistor Modeling: Frequency Dispersion, Michael Shur

Semiconductor Technology for Ultra-Large Scale Integrated Circuits and Thin Film Transistors VI (ULSIC vs TFT 6)

Using new materials (including organic materials), scaling down to shorter device sizes, using printed TFT technology, and operating Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) at higher frequencies all bring upfront the issues of frequency dispersion of the TFT current-voltage and capacitance-voltage characteristics. This dispersion depends on the interplay of the contact phenomena and electron transport in the device channel. The standard way to account for the frequency dispersion is using the Elmore model (see Fig. 1 a) [1,2], which introduces the RC delays to reflect the propagation time of the carriers along the channel. However, this model is not sufficient for the …

Ccus As A Regional Economic Development Tool: Planning And Design Considerations, Kevin O’Brien

CO2 Summit III: Pathways to Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage Deployment

One of the major concerns has been the impact of Carbon Capture Utilization and Sequestration on regional economies. We submit that CCUS provides a means for regional economic growth and job creation. In order to achieve these benefits, it is necessary to re-build and re-design the structure of the regional carbon supply chain. This includes (1) developing a methodology to evaluate large scale capture options for regional power plants, (2) evaluating a portfolio of options to utilize the captured CO2 that are relevant to the needs of the local economy, (3) establishing public-private partnerships that help incentivize the newly formed …

Co2 Capture From Industrial Sources By High-Temperature Sorbents, Matteo C. Romano, Giampaolo Manzolini, Stefano Consonni

CO2 Summit III: Pathways to Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage Deployment

Among the emerging CO2 capture technologies, systems based on high temperature (HT) regenerable sorbents had a significant development in recent years. In addition to power plants, HT sorbents technologies can be particularly promising for CO2 capture in carbon intensive industrial processes such as cement plants, steel mills and hydrogen plants. Calcium looping (CaL) is a combined post-combustion and oxyfuel combustion technology which uses calcium oxide (CaO) as CO2 sorbent. In this process, CO2 in combustion flue gases is absorbed in a carbonator reactor by forming calcium carbonate (CaCO3) through the exothermic carbonation reaction. Carbonated sorbent is then regenerated to CaO …

Equilibrium Mobility In Igzo Tft: Existence Of The Intermediate Boolchand Phase?, Dieter G. Ast

Semiconductor Technology for Ultra-Large Scale Integrated Circuits and Thin Film Transistors VI (ULSIC vs TFT 6)

This talk will consider the applicability of modern topological constraint theory of glass developed by Boolchand, Thorp and Phillips (BTP) to IGZO and ask if it might explain the high (compared to spins) H content of a-Si:H.

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Adsorption Processes For Co2 Capture: An Overview, Paul Webley, Ranjeet Singh, Penny Xiao

CO2 Summit III: Pathways to Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage Deployment

Adsorption processes for CO2 capture have gained significant attention in the last decade with hundreds of reports on new adsorbents and processes for capture and removal of carbon dioxide from a range of gas streams. To date, the only commercial examples are removal of trace carbon dioxide in gas streams such as LNG and ASU upstream molecular sieve units. There are no commercial examples of the use of adsorbents to capture carbon dioxide by adsorption processes and deliver a stream of high purity carbon dioxide for sequestration or further processing. In this study, we present the range of processing options …

A Membrane Approach To Co2 Capture, Richard W. Baker, Brice Freeman, Tim Merkel

CO2 Summit III: Pathways to Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage Deployment

For the past eight years, Membrane Technology and Research, Inc. (MTR) sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, has been developing membrane technology to capture CO2 from power plant flue gas. A 20 ton/day test system has been built and operated at two field sites. The technology is moving to the 200 ton/day (10 MWe) demonstration scale. A block diagram of the MTR process is shown in Figure 1. One innovation of this process is the use of a two-step membrane design where the second step uses a membrane operating with air sweep to selectively recycle CO2 to the boiler. …