The effect of dilution and l-malic acid addition on bio-hydrogen production with Rhodopseudomonas palustris from effluent of an acidogenic anaerobic reactor

In this study, H₂ was produced from cheese whey wastewater in a two-stage biological process: i) first stage; thermophilic dark fermentation ii) second stage; the photo fermentation using Rhodopseudomonas palustris strain DSM 127 (R. palustris). The effect of both dilution and addition of l-malic acid on the hydrogen production was investigated. Among the dilution rates used, 1/5 dilution ratio was found to produce the best hydrogen production (349 ml H₂/g COD_fed). On the other hand, It was seen that the mixing the effluent with l-malic acid at increasing ratios had further positive effect and improved the hydrogen production significantly. It was concluded that dilution of the feeding helps to reduce the nitrogen content and the volatile fatty acid content that might be otherwise harmful to the photo-heterotrophic organisms. Overall hydrogen production yield (for dark + photo fermentation) was found to vary 2 and 10 mol H₂/mol lactose. Second conclusion is that cheese whey effluent should be mixed with a co-substrate containing l-malic acid such as apple juice processing effluents before fed into the photo fermentation reactor.     

Development of polycaprolactone-based electrospun pH-sensitive sensors as instant colorimetric indicators for food packaging

In the present study, polycaprolactone/polyethylene glycol (PCL/PEG) electrospun nanofibres with different anthocyanin (1%, 2%, 3%, and 5%) were fabricated for the instant measurement of pH, especially for applications—such as food freshness detection—where quick response is required. The solution, surface, chemical, thermal, wettability, mechanical, and release properties of the samples were evaluated by viscosity measurements, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR), contact angle measurements, and tensile tests, respectively. The colorimetric analyses were also investigated against the solutions at different pH values and bacterial solutions. Finally, the on-site performance of the sensor was evaluated. Anthocyanin addition initially lowered the solution viscosity, resulting in thinner fibres with a diameter of 288 nm. The diameters were increased up to 395 nm with the increasing anthocyanin. Anthocyanin addition enhanced the wettability and the mechanical properties, and the contact angles decreased to 43°. The highest modulus was observed for 1% anthocyanin, with a value of 6.162. The release experiments revealed that the anthocyanin-loaded samples released a large amount of anthocyanin (between ~12% and 38%) in the first 15 s. The colorimetric analyses showed that PCL/PEG nanofibre mats with 2% and 3% anthocyanin concentrations were the most capable pH-sensitive sensors for detecting pH changes from 2 to 8. As a result, it can be concluded that 3% anthocyanin is the threshold value for the production of the anthocyanin-loaded nanofibre mats, and these structures are promising for the instant detection of pH proved by the on-site application.     

Maintenance Error Detection Procedure and A Case Study of Failure Analysis Locomotive Diesel Engine Bearings

Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention - This paper presents a maintenance error detection algorithm. Proposed algorithm is used to determine failure analysis of a locomotive...     

KEIP: a distributed k-connectivity estimation algorithm based on independent paths for wireless sensor networks

Wireless Networks - Maintaining the connectivity between all nodes is a challenging task in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) because failure of some nodes may divide the network to disconnected...