Design, engineering, and construction of photosynthetic microbial cell factories for renewable solar fuel production

There is an urgent need to develop sustainable solutions to convert solar energy into energy carriers used in the society. In addition to solar cells generating electricity, there are several options to generate solar fuels. This paper outlines and discusses the design and engineering of photosynthetic microbial systems for the generation of renewable solar fuels, with a focus on cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria are prokaryotic microorganisms with the same type of photosynthesis as higher plants. Native and engineered cyanobacteria have been used by us and others as model systems to examine, demonstrate, and develop photobiological H(2) production. More recently, the production of carbon-containing solar fuels like ethanol, butanol, and isoprene have been demonstrated. We are using a synthetic biology approach to develop efficient photosynthetic microbial cell factories for direct generation of biofuels from solar energy. Present progress and advances in the design, engineering, and construction of such cyanobacterial cells for the generation of a portfolio of solar fuels, e.g., hydrogen, alcohols, and isoprene, are presented and discussed. Possibilities and challenges when introducing and using synthetic biology are highlighted.     

The cradle of the city: the environmental imprint of Brussels and its hinterland in the High Middle Ages

As a popular assumption, the cities are considered to exert a major impact on their hinterland. In fact, little is known about this imprint on the earlier period. This paper will thus try to delineate as far as possible urban and rural contributions to the imprint by using a cause and effect analysis. The paper argues that the birth of second generation cities like Brussels is the result of a demographic and economic process occurring in the rural environment. Above all in a second phase, once the process of human concentration within the city initiated and the town became a market center and a consumer power, rural developments changed under the urban imprint: at that moment the city imposed a certain spatial structure on the rural system with intensive and high profitability cultures replacing extensive practices.     

Fibre reinforced polymers in the sports industry – Life Cycle Engineering methodology applied to a snowboard using anisotropic layer design

Technological development has had huge impacts in sports performance throughout the years, fostering the development of specific materials and manufacturing processes for sports-related products. Within this context, a new technology for snowboards was developed taking advantage of the internal coupling effects of Fibre Reinforced Plastics (FRP) using an anisotropic layer design. This work deals with the technical, economic and environmental evaluation of a snowboard made of three alternative materials, namely carbon, glass and flax fibre reinforced plastics. It shows how a life cycle analysis can support the design and development of products by applying a Life Cycle Engineering methodology to the design process of a snowboard using an innovative technology. In this case, both the material choice and the fiber placement angles have a significant impact on the stiffness of the resulting FRP and thus in the three dimensions of analysis - cost, environmental and technical. The natural fiber is the most sustainable option environmentally, the glass fiber is the best one economically and the carbon fibre is the best in terms of technical performance. Therefore, the importance attributed to each dimension of analysis is pondered and traded-off to allow an aggregated analysis of the alternatives and a well-informed decision-making.     

Modeling the dynamics of DDT in a remote tropical floodplain: indications of post-ban use?

Significant knowledge gaps exist regarding the fate and transport of persistent organic pollutants like dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) in tropical environments. In Brazil, indoor residual spraying with DDT to combat malaria and leishmaniasis began in the 1950s and was banned in 1998. Nonetheless, high concentrations of DDT and its metabolites were recently detected in human breast milk in the community of Lake Puruzinho in the Brazilian Amazon. In this work, we couple analysis of soils and sediments from 2005 to 2014 at Puruzinho with a novel dynamic floodplain model to investigate the movement and distribution of DDT and its transformation products (dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) and dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane (DDD)) and implications for human exposure. The model results are in good agreement with the accumulation pattern observed in the measurements, in which DDT, DDE, and DDD (collectively, DDX) accumulate primarily in upland soils and sediments. However, a significant increase was observed in DDX concentrations in soil samples from 2005 to 2014, coupled with a decrease of DDT/DDE ratios, which do not agree with model results assuming a post-ban regime. These observations strongly suggest recent use. We used the model to investigate possible re-emissions after the ban through two scenarios: one assuming DDT use for IRS and the other assuming use against termites and leishmaniasis. Median DDX concentrations and p,p′-DDT/p,p′-DDE ratios from both of these scenarios agreed with measurements in soils, suggesting that the soil parameterization in our model was appropriate. Measured DDX concentrations in sediments were between the two re-emission scenarios. Therefore, both soil and sediment comparisons suggest re-emissions indeed occurred between 2005 and 2014, but additional measurements would be needed to better understand the actual re-emission patterns. Monte Carlo analysis revealed model predictions for sediments were very sensitive to highly uncertain parameters associated with DDT degradation and partitioning. With this model as a tool for understanding inter-media cycling, additional research to refine these parameters would improve our understanding of DDX fate and transport in tropical sediments.     

Photochemical nitro-nitrite rearrangement in methyl parathion decay under tropical conditions

This work presents a study of the abiotic degradation of commercially available methyl parathion in aqueous solution at two different concentrations (88 mg/L and 200 μg/L). The effects of solar irradiation and the presence of humic acids were evaluated and revealed a synergistic response between them. The half-life of methyl parathion ranged from 4.9 to 37 days, and the experimental data also show that photochemical processes were the most relevant in this case. The only byproduct found in samples submitted to shadowed conditions was 4-nitrophenol. On the other hand, 4-nitrophenol, methyl paraoxon and a new degradation product (O,O-dimethyl O-p-hydroxyphenyl phosphorothioate) were detected when the samples were exposed directly to sunlight. This newly identified compound was prepared in the laboratory by thiophosphorylation of hydroquinone, and coelution experiments with authentic samples provided unambiguous confirmation of the presence of O,O-dimethyl O-p-hydroxy phenylphosphorothioate in samples.     

Evaluation of the efficiency of a Venturi scrubber in particulate matter collection smaller than 2.5 µm emitted by biomass burning

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Energy demand has increased worldwide, and biomass burning is one of the solutions most used by industries, especially in countries that have a great...     

Phenol degradation using combined effects of hydrodynamic cavitation and oxidant: Doehlert matrix

Hydrodynamic cavitation (HC)-based treatments have been proposed for the degradation of phenol as a toxic pollutant. The present work aimed to optimize the degradation of phenol using HC by means of Doehlert experimental design, which has not been previously addressed. Initially, operational parameters of hydraulic characteristics of the pump, inlet pressure, solution pH, and initial concentration were optimized; later, the effects of pH solution and H₂O₂ loading or initial pollutant concentration on phenol degradation were explored using the Doehlert experimental design. It was observed that phenol degradation is strongly dependent on the pH of the solution. Also, the acidic condition favors the formation of hydroxyl radicals and thus, the degradation of phenol. Based on the Doehlert matrix, the 94.1% phenol degradation and 68.60% total organic carbon (TOC) were obtained in 180 min at 304.5 mg/L of hydrogen peroxide at an initial concentration of 20 mg/L, 2.0 pH, and 90 psi inlet pressure, providing a cavitational yield of 6.33 × 10⁻⁶ mg/J and minimum treatment cost of US$/L 0.13. Overall, it has been observed that HC can be a promising route for the removal of pollutants (phenol) effectively using hydrogen peroxide as an additive.