National-scale implementation of mandatory freshwater farm plans: a mechanism to deliver water quality improvement in productive catchments in New Zealand?

Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems - Reducing agriculturally derived diffuse contaminant losses (via non-point sources) from land to water has proven difficult for decades. Owing to the diversity...     

Photo isomerization of cis-cyclooctene to trans-cyclooctene: Integration of a micro-flow reactor and separation by specific adsorption

Liquid-phase adsorption has hardly been established in micro-flow, although this constitutes an industrially vital method for product separation. A micro-flow UV-photo isomerization process converts cis-cyclooctene partly into trans-cyclooctene, leaving an isomeric mixture. Trans-cyclooctene adsorption and thus separation was achieved in a fixed-bed micro-flow reactor, packed with AgNO₃/SiO₂ powder, while the cis-isomer stays in the flow. The closed-loop recycling-flow has been presented as systemic approach to enrich the trans-cyclooctene from its cis-isomer. In-flow adsorption in recycling-mode has hardly been reported so that a full theoretical study has been conducted. This insight is used to evaluate three process design options to reach an optimum yield of trans-cyclooctene. These differ firstly in the variation of the individual residence times in the reactor and separator, the additional process option of refreshing the adsorption column under use, and the periodicity of the recycle flow.     

Influence of Organic Carbon Sources on Metal Removal from Mine Impacted Water Using Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria Bioreactors in Cold Climates

Mine Water and the Environment - Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a major environmental challenge for the mining industry in northern climates. Laboratory-scale experiments were conducted to test...     

Role of the bolus degree of structure on the protein digestibility during in vitro digestion of a pea protein-fortified sponge cake chewed by elderly

This study investigated the digestibility of proteins in a pea protein-fortified sponge cake, as well as the impact of the degree of structure of the bolus produced by elderly subjects on the digestibility of proteins by combining ex vivo and in vitro approaches via the standardized protocol INFOGEST. The sponge cakes were consumed by a group of 20 elderly subjects with contrasting physiology, their boli were recovered just before swallowing, and their apparent viscosity was measured to delineate the bolus degree of structure. According to this criterion, two pools were formed with boli from subjects selected at the extremes: low viscosity and high viscosity, with apparent viscosity values (at 120 s⁻¹) of 124 ± 18 and 208 ± 19 Pa s, respectively. The sponge cakes and the two pools underwent in vitro digestion. Protein hydrolysis kinetics was followed by measuring the released primary amino groups (NH₂) and by sodium-dodecyl-sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis at different time points. For all samples, the representative bands of pea proteins disappear gradually during digestion, accompanied by the appearance of bands indicating the presence of proteins with M_W < 15 kDa. In addition, the NH₂ concentrations increase over time and do not differ between sponge cake and pea protein isolate. Moreover, the degree of structure of the food bolus has no significant effect on the concentration of NH₂ released. These results showed that pea proteins in a fortified sponge cake are bioaccessible under standardized conditions and that the degree of structure of the bolus did not influence protein digestibility for these foods.     

Graded evolution of anisotropic microstructure during sintering from crystal-oriented powder compact

Anisotropic sintering, including shrinkage and grain growth, was examined for c-axis-oriented (Sr,Ca)₂NaNb₅O₁₅ (SCNN) ceramics, which were prepared by colloidal processing under a magnetic field. In the c-axis-oriented SCNN powder compact, shrinkage and grain growth along the c-axis were higher than those along the a-axis. The anisotropic microstructural development was clearly associated with anisotropic sintering shrinkage. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and energy back scattering diffraction showed that the grain growth of oriented particles by including random grains contribute to the development of the oriented microstructure. Finally, the highly crystal-oriented SCNN ceramics with a densified microstructure were obtained through anisotropic sintering. These results clearly showed the potential to develop a well-defined anisotropic microstructure during sintering by designing and controlling the particle packing structure in a powder compact.     

GutSelf: Interindividual Variability in the Processing of Dietary Compounds by the Human Gastrointestinal Tract

Nutritional research is currently entering the field of personalized nutrition, to a large extent driven by major technological breakthroughs in analytical sciences and biocomputing. An efficient launching of the personalized approach depends on the ability of researchers to comprehensively monitor and characterize interindividual variability in the activity of the human gastrointestinal tract. This information is currently not available in such a form. This review therefore aims at identifying and discussing published data, providing evidence on interindividual variability in the processing of the major nutrients, i.e., protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals, along the gastrointestinal tract, including oral processing, intestinal digestion, and absorption. Although interindividual variability is not a primary endpoint of most studies identified, a significant number of publications provides a wealth of information on this topic for each category of nutrients. This knowledge remains fragmented, however, and understanding the clinical relevance of most of the interindividual responses to food ingestion described in this review remains unclear. In that regard, this review has identified a gap and sets the base for future research addressing the issue of the interindividual variability in the response of the human organism to the ingestion of foods.     

An investigation on machinability assessment of Al-6XN and AISI 316 alloys: an assessment study of machining

This work presents machinability assessment of AL-6XN super austenitic stainless steel alloy. Cutting forces, surface roughness, work hardening tendency and tool wear were analyzed. The assessment was conducted based on a comparison between the AL-6XN alloy and the well-known alloy in the machining field AISI 316. Finite element analysis (FEA) study was also conducted and used in this assessment. Experimental results showed maximum increase of 70% and 57% in the feed and normal forces of the AL-6XN alloy, respectively. Maximum increase in the work hardening tendency of 59% was recorded for the AL-6XN alloy while only 29% was recorded for the 316 alloy. The roughness analysis recorded an increase of 186% for the AL-6XN alloy compared to the 316 alloy. Tool wear analysis revealed the build-up edge formation, severe chipping, flank and crater wear (CW) during cutting AL-6XN alloy whereas small chipping, flank and CW were noticed during cutting 316 alloy. FEA study showed when the AL-6XN alloy machined using 65 and 94?m/min cutting speeds, the increases (compared to the 316 alloy) were: 12% and 8% in plastic strain; 20% and 20% in stresses; 48% and 100% in residual tensile stresses; 22% and 92% in residual compressive stresses, respectively.     

A Novel Technology for Natural Gas Conversion by Means of Integrated Oxidative Coupling and Dry Reforming of Methane

A novel process concept for the oxidative coupling of methane followed by the oligomerization to liquids has been developed within the frame of the EU integrated project OCMOL. This technology is based on process intensification principles via cutting‐edge structured microreactor technology. It is also a fully integrated industrial process through the re‐use and the recycling of by‐products, in particular CO₂, at every process stage. The focus of this contribution is on the reaction engineering aspects of the core steps, i.e., catalysts, kinetics and reactor design for the methane coupling and reforming.