Turning wine (waste) into water: Toward technological advances in the use of constructed wetlands for winery effluent treatment

The research presented in this article describes an investigation into the use of vegetated submerged reedbeds (VSR) as a practicable alternative for effluent treatment for small‐scale wine producers. In this study, we found that the hydraulic processes occurring within the VSR display significantly nonideal behavior. If the feed to the VSR was located on the surface the dead volume accounted for approximately 25% of the nonideal behavior of the system and bypass accounted for a further 6%. A preferential flow pattern was found within the VSR with the greatest flow occurring closest the surface and in the center, and the least at the sidewalls. We propose that the flow profile can be conceptualized as being hull shaped and found that this profile was the same for irregularly shaped gravel and for spherically shaped gelatinous beads. We, therefore, hypothesize that it is not dependent on the geometry of the VSR or the packing medium. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J 60: 420–431, 2014     

Quality‐relevant fault diagnosis with concurrent phase partition and analysis of relative changes for multiphase batch processes

Multiplicity of phases as indicated by changes of process characteristics is an inherent nature of many batch processes for both normal and fault cases. To more efficiently perform online fault diagnosis via reconstruction for multiphase batch processes, the phase nature and the relationship between normal and fault cases within each phase should be deeply addressed. This article proposes a quality‐relevant fault diagnosis strategy with concurrent phase partition and analysis of relative changes for multiphase batch processes. First, a concurrent phase partition algorithm is developed. The basic idea is to track the changes of process characteristics at normal and fault statuses jointly so that multiple sequential modeling phases are identified simultaneously for both normal and fault cases. Then, the relative changes from the normal status to each fault case are analyzed in each phase to reveal the specific fault effects more efficiently. The fault effects are decomposed in two different monitoring subspaces, principal subspace, and residual subspace, by capturing their different roles in removing out‐of‐control signals. The significant increases relative to the normal case are judged to be responsible for the concerned alarm monitoring statistics in each phase. The others are composed of general variations that are deemed to still follow normal rules and thus insignificant to remove alarm monitoring statistics. Those alarm‐responsible fault deviations are then used to develop reconstruction models which can more efficiently recover the fault‐free part for online fault diagnosis. The proposed algorithm is illustrated with a typical multiphase batch process with one normal case and three fault cases. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 2048–2062, 2014     

Application of microbial enhanced oil recovery technology in water‐based bitumen extraction from weathered oil sands

When using the water‐based extraction processes (WBEPs) to recover bitumen from the weathered oil sands, very low bitumen recovery arisen from the poor liberation of bitumen from sand grains is always obtained. Application of microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) technology in WBEPs to solve the poor processability of the weathered ore was proposed. It was found that processability of the microbial‐treated weathered ore was greatly improved. The improved processability was attributed to the biosurfactants production in the culture solution, alteration of the solids wettability, degradation of the asphaltene component, and the decrease of the bitumen viscosity, which collectively contributed to the bitumen liberation from the surface of sand grains. Although it still has many issues to be solved for an industrial application of the MEOR technology in oil sands separation, it is believed that the findings in this work promote the solution to the poor processability of the weathered ore. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 2985–2993, 2014     

Integration of scheduling and control for batch processes using multi‐parametric model predictive control

Integration of scheduling and control results in Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) which is computationally expensive. The online implementation of integrated scheduling and control requires repetitively solving the resulting MINLP at each time interval. (Zhuge and Ierapetritou, Ind Eng Chem Res. 2012;51:8550–8565) To address the online computation burden, we incorporare multi‐parametric Model Predictive Control (mp‐MPC) in the integration of scheduling and control. The proposed methodology involves the development of an integrated model using continuous‐time event‐point formulation for the scheduling level and the derived constraints from explicit MPC for the control level. Results of case studies of batch processes prove that the proposed approach guarantees efficient computation and thus facilitates the online implementation. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 3169–3183, 2014     

Dynamic Reductive Kinetic Resolution of Benzyl Ketones using Alcohol Dehydrogenases and Anion Exchange Resins

Dynamic reductive kinetic resolutions of racemic 3‐arylalkanones have been performed by the proper combination of an alcohol dehydrogenase and a basic anionic resin. The best results were found for the bioreduction with the alcohol dehydrogenase type A from Rhodococcus ruber DSM 44541 overexpressed in Escherichia coli (E. coli/ADH‐A) and the commercially available evo‐1.1.200, while the Amberlite IRA‐440 C and the DOWEX‐MWA‐1 resins allowed efficient in situ racemizations. Reaction conditions were optimized in terms of enzyme source and loading, type and amount of resin, pH, temperature and reaction times, obtaining a series of (R,R)‐substituted propan‐2‐ols with good conversions and both diastereoselectivity and stereoselectivity. As a proof of concept, the subsequent intramolecular cyclization of a selected propan‐2‐ol substrate afforded a valuable isochroman heterocycle without any loss of the optical purity.

     

芳烃联合装置烯烃脱除技术对比分析与建议

介绍了国内外芳烃生产中脱除烯烃工艺及催化剂技术的发展,通过不同技术适用条件和应用效果的对比,提出了现有芳烃联合装置加快采用分子筛催化剂脱除重整生成油中的烯烃,及其他生产单元的烯烃脱除工序也要逐步采用分子筛催化剂精制的方法脱除烯烃的建议。     

Characterization of Paraquat-Induced miRNA Profiling Response in hNPCs Undergoing Proliferation

Aberration during the development of the central nervous system (CNS) due to environmental factors underlies a variety of adverse developmental outcomes. Paraquat (PQ) is a widely studied neurotoxicant that perturbs the normal structure/function of adult CNS. Yet, the impacts of PQ exposure on the developing CNS remain unclear. miRNAs represent a class of small non-coding RNA molecules involved in the regulation of neural development. Thus in the present study, we analyzed the impacts of PQ on the miRNome of human neural progenitor cells (hNPCs) during proliferation by using the Exiqon miRCURY™ LNA Array. A total of 66 miRNAs were identified as differentially expressed in proliferating hNPCs upon PQ treatment. miRTarBase prediction identified 1465 mRNAs, including several genes (e.g., nestin, sox1, ngn1) previously proved to be associated with the neural proliferation and differentiation, as target genes of PQ-induced differentially expressed miRNAs. The database for annotation, visualization and integrated discovery (DAVID) bioinformatics analysis showed that target genes were enriched in regulation of cell proliferation and differentiation, cell cycle and apoptosis as well as tumor protein 53 (p53), Wnt, Notch and mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) signaling pathways (p < 0.001). These findings were confirmed by real-time RT-PCR. Based on our results we conclude that PQ-induced impacts on the miRNA profiling of hNPCs undergoing proliferation may underlie the developmental neurotoxicity of PQ.     

Combined advanced oxidation and biodegradation of industrial effluents from the production of stilbene-based fluorescent whitening agents

Three different industrial wastewaters from the production of stilbene-based fluorescent whitening agents were investigated with regard to the applicability of advanced oxidation processes combined with biodegradation. Oxidation processes included the application of ozone, hydrogen peroxide, UV-radiation and Fenton's reagent (Fe(2+)/H(2)O(2)). Characterization of the combined chemical-biological treatment was done by sum parameters and HPLC analysis. In addition, toxicity was determined using the luminescence inhibition test. Results showed that processes producing OH-radicals without the need of UV-irradiation proved to be suited for the oxidation of all three wastewaters. H(2)O(2)/UV processes were ineffective due to the high inner filter effect of the effluents. Comparing the combined oxidative-biological process with biological treatment, the applied pre-oxidation steps did not always lead to a significant improvement of the biological degradation. In one case, an inverted treatment starting with biodegradation followed by oxidation turned out to be the preferable procedure. After oxidation with ozone or ozone combined with UV-irradiation, an increase in toxicity was partly observed indicating the formation of toxic intermediate products. In some cases samples had to be diluted before the biodegradation step to achieve a better biodegradability.     

Iron oxide amended biosand filters for virus removal

Laboratory studies were performed to determine if the addition of iron oxides throughout biosand filter (BSF) media would increase virus removal due to adsorption. The proposed mechanism is electrostatic adsorption of negatively charged virion particles to positively charged iron oxides formed during the corrosion of zerovalent iron. Initial tests conducted using continuous flow, small-scale glass columns showed high MS2 bacteriophage removal in an iron-amended sand column (5log₁₀) compared to a sand-only column (0.5log₁₀) over 20 pore volumes. Additionally, two experiments with a column containing iron particles revealed 4log₁₀ and 5log₁₀ removal of rotavirus in the presence of 20 mg/L total organic carbon. Full-scale BSFs with iron particles removed >4log₁₀ MS2 for the duration of the experiment (287 days), while BSF with steel wool removed >4log₁₀ MS2 for the first 160 days. Plug flow for the BSF was shown to depend on uniformity between the iron oxide material and sand media grains. The results suggest that the duration of effective virus removal by iron-amended biosand filtration depends on source water conditions and the quantity and composition of iron material added. Overall, this study provides evidence that iron-amended BSFs may advance the field of point-of-use technologies and bring relief to millions of people suffering from waterborne diseases.