scholarly journals Ecological and Biotechnological Aspects of Pigmented Microbes: A Way Forward in Development of Food and Pharmaceutical Grade Pigments

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 637
Author(s):  
Ramesh Chatragadda ◽  
Laurent Dufossé
Keyword(s):  
Biomedical Applications ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
Natural Pigments ◽  
High Production ◽  
Synthetic Colorants ◽  
Synthetic Pigments ◽  
Evolutionary Aspects ◽  
Pigmented Bacteria

Microbial pigments play multiple roles in the ecosystem construction, survival, and fitness of all kinds of organisms. Considerably, microbial (bacteria, fungi, yeast, and microalgae) pigments offer a wide array of food, drug, colorants, dyes, and imaging applications. In contrast to the natural pigments from microbes, synthetic colorants are widely used due to high production, high intensity, and low cost. Nevertheless, natural pigments are gaining more demand over synthetic pigments as synthetic pigments have demonstrated side effects on human health. Therefore, research on microbial pigments needs to be extended, explored, and exploited to find potential industrial applications. In this review, the evolutionary aspects, the spatial significance of important pigments, biomedical applications, research gaps, and future perspectives are detailed briefly. The pathogenic nature of some pigmented bacteria is also detailed for awareness and safe handling. In addition, pigments from macro-organisms are also discussed in some sections for comparison with microbes.

Synthesis of Programmable Mechanisms Using Adjustable Dyads

1997 ◽  
Vol 119 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Chuenchom ◽  
S. Kota
Keyword(s):  
High Speed ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Synthesis Method ◽  
Point Theory ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
Synthesis Methods ◽  
Linkage Mechanism ◽  
Manufacturing Automation ◽  
Multiple Tasks ◽  
High Production

Conventional hard automation such as linkage mechanisms and cam-driven mechanisms provide high speed capability at a low cost, but fail to provide the flexibility required in many industrial applications. On the other hand, for most manufacturing automation applications in high production industries, expensive multi-axis robots are employed for simple repetitive operations that require only limited flexibility. In order to provide a true middle ground between conventional mechanism-based hard automation and overly flexible anthropomorphic robots, we incorporate flexibility in conventional mechanisms, thereby creating “programmable mechanisms” or Adjustable Robotic Mechanisms (ARMs). This paper introduces the concept of ARMs and presents generalized analytical methods for designing adjustable mechanisms based on synthesis of adjustable dyads. The synthesis methods presented here, which are extensions of the well-known Burmester precision point theory, enable one to design multi-purpose mechanisms for multiple sets of precision points, thereby enabling conventional mechanisms to perform multiple tasks. The analytical synthesis method has been implemented in a computer program that generates all adjustable dyad solutions for given sets of precision points. Two or more adjustable dyads are assembled together to form a programmable linkage mechanism that performs multiple tasks. Synthesis formulations and a design example illustrating the analytical and computer-aided synthesis methods are presented.

Transient Thermodynamic Modelling and Experimental Validation of an Antagonistic SMA Actuator

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anupam Pathak ◽  
Diann Brei ◽  
Jonathan Luntz
Keyword(s):  
Low Cost ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
High Yield ◽  
Attractive Alternative ◽  
Driving Frequency ◽  
Physically Based ◽  
Antagonistic Actuation ◽  
High Production ◽  
Key Aspects

Modern developments in Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) has positioned the material as an attractive alternative actuation for high yield, low cost industries which stand to benefit from the materials simple form, light weight, and high energy densities. However, the speed and predictability still remain as a barrier to its acceptance and usage. The robotics community has shown promising results with antagonistic actuation architectures to increase the cyclic speed and produce controlled motions; however, such control-based approaches generally require sensing and feedback implementations and tuning that are undesirable for high production products. This paper presents a simple but effective physically-based thermodynamic model for generic antagonistic actuation architecture. The model is derived from three sets of equations: differential equations describing the thermomechanical phase transformation behavior of the material, compatibility equations specific to the antagonistic configuration relating stresses and strains in the two wires to each other, and heat transfer equations involving the thermal properties of both the environment and the wire material. This model takes into consideration several key-aspects of real devices such as the wires becoming slack or localalized boiling conditions. This model was experimentally validated and studied under a range of conditions including variations in driving frequency (0.3–10 Hz), duty cycle (10%–45%), amplitude (50%–100% transformation), and wire diameter (8–20 mil). The correlation over these widely varying conditions indicates the model’s accuracy and potential for use in the design process of future antagonistic actuators and their controllers for industrial applications.

scholarly journals Agro-Industrial Residues: Eco-Friendly and Inexpensive Substrates for Microbial Pigments Production

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernanda Cortez Lopes ◽  
Rodrigo Ligabue-Braun
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Biological Activities ◽  
Antimicrobial Activities ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
Wild Type ◽  
Industrial Residues ◽  
Primary And Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Natural Pigments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Synthetic Colorants

Many commodities are abundantly produced around the world, including soybean, corn, rice sugarcane, cassava, coffee, fruits, and many others. These productions are responsible for the generation of enormous amounts of daily residues, such as cassava and sugarcane bagasses, rice husk, and coffee peel. These residues are rich sources for renewable energy and can be used as substrates for industrial interest products. Microorganisms are useful biofactories, capable of producing important primary and secondary metabolites, including alcohol, enzymes, antibiotics, pigments, and many other molecules. The production of pigments was reported in bacteria, filamentous fungi, yeasts, and algae. These natural microbial pigments are very promising because synthetic colorants present a long history of allergies and toxicity. In addition, many natural pigments present other biological activities, such as antioxidant and antimicrobial activities, that are interesting for industrial applications. The use of inexpensive substrates for the production of these metabolites is very attractive, considering that agro-industrial residues are generated in high amounts and usually are a problem to the industry. Therefore, in this article we review the production of microbial pigments using agro-industrial residues during the current decade (2010–2020), considering both submerged and solid state fermentations, wild-type and genetically modified microorganisms, laboratorial to large-scale bioprocesses, and other possible biological activities related to these pigments.

scholarly journals Multifaceted Applications of Microbial Pigments: Current Knowledge, Challenges and Future Directions for Public Health Implications

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramesh ◽  
Vinithkumar ◽  
Kirubagaran ◽  
Venil ◽  
Dufossé
Keyword(s):  
Biomedical Applications ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Future Generation ◽  
Antimicrobial Activities ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
Natural Food ◽  
Cytotoxic Activities ◽  
Sustainable Livelihood ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Synthetic Colorants

Microbial oddities such as versatile pigments are gaining more attention in current research due to their widely perceived applications as natural food colorants, textiles, antimicrobial activities, and cytotoxic activities. This indicates that the future generation will depend on microbial pigments over synthetic colorants for sustainable livelihood. Although several reviews have detailed the comprehensive applications of microbial pigments extensively, knowledge on several aspects of pigmented microbes is apparently missing and not properly reviewed anywhere. Thus, this review has been made to provide overall knowledge on biodiversity, distribution, pathogenicity, and ecological and industrial applications of microbial pigments as well as their challenges and future directions for food, industrial, and biomedical applications. Meticulously, this compendious review treatise on the pigments from bacteria, fungi, yeasts, and microalgae includes reports from the 1970s to 2018. A total of 261 pigment compounds produced by about 500 different microbial species are included, and their bioactive nature is described.

POTENTIAL EVALUATION OF YELLOW COTTON (COCHLOSPERMUM REGIUM) PIGMENTS FOR DYE SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS APPLICATION

2020 ◽  
pp. 16-21
Author(s):  
PHITCHAPHORN KHAMMEE ◽  
YUWALEE UNPAPROM ◽  
UBONWAN SUBHASAEN ◽  
RAMESHPRABU RAMARAJ
Keyword(s):  
Solar Cells ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Dye Sensitized Solar Cells ◽  
Photoelectric Conversion Efficiency ◽  
Photoelectric Conversion ◽  
Plant Materials ◽  
Natural Pigments ◽  
Dye Sensitized ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Sensitized Solar Cells

Recently, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) have concerned significant attention attributable to their material preparation process, architectural and environmental compatibility, also low cost and effective photoelectric conversion efficiency. Therefore, this study aimed to use potential plant materials for DSSC. This research presents the extraction of natural pigments from yellow cotton flowers (Cochlospermum regium). In addition, the natural pigments were revealed that outstanding advantages, including a wide absorption range (visible light), easy extraction method, safe, innocuous pigments, inexpensive, complete biodegradation and ecofriendly. Methanol was used as a solvent extraction for the yellow cotton flower. The chlorophylls and carotenoid pigments extractions were estimated by a UV-visible spectrometer. The chlorophyll-a, chlorophyll-b, and carotenoid yield were 0.719±0.061 µg/ml, 1.484±0.107 µg/ml and 7.743±0.141 µg/ml, respectively. Thus, this study results suggested that yellow cotton flowers containing reasonable amounts appealable in the DSSC production.

scholarly journals Remote Reflectivity Sensor for Industrial Applications

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1301
Author(s):  
Federico Cavedo ◽  
Parisa Esmaili ◽  
Michele Norgia
Keyword(s):  
Low Cost ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
Interference Immunity ◽  
Surface Reflection ◽  
Measurement Systems ◽  
Digital Detector ◽  
Reflected Light ◽  
Surface Optical ◽  
Diffused Light

A low-cost optical reflectivity sensor is proposed in this paper, able to detect the presence of objects or surface optical properties variations, at a distance of up to 20 m. A collimated laser beam is pulsed at 10 kHz, and a synchronous digital detector coherently measures the back-diffused light collected through a 1-inch biconvex lens. The sensor is a cost-effective solution for punctual measurement of the surface reflection at different distances. To enhance the interference immunity, an algorithm based on a double-side digital baseline restorer is proposed and implemented to accurately detect the amplitude of the reflected light. As results show, the sensor is robust against ambient light and shows a strong sensitivity on a wide reflection range. The capability of the proposed sensor was evaluated experimentally for object detection and recognition, in addition to dedicated measurement systems, like remote encoders or keyphasors, realized far from the object to be measured.

scholarly journals Deconstruction of Lignin: From Enzymes to Microorganisms

Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 2299
Author(s):  
Jéssica P. Silva ◽  
Alonso R. P. Ticona ◽  
Pedro R. V. Hamann ◽  
Betania F. Quirino ◽  
Eliane F. Noronha
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Metabolic Pathways ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Direct Analysis ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Lignocellulosic Residues ◽  
Complementary Techniques ◽  
Plant Polymer ◽  
Powerful Strategy

Lignocellulosic residues are low-cost abundant feedstocks that can be used for industrial applications. However, their recalcitrance currently makes lignocellulose use limited. In natural environments, microbial communities can completely deconstruct lignocellulose by synergistic action of a set of enzymes and proteins. Microbial degradation of lignin by fungi, important lignin degraders in nature, has been intensively studied. More recently, bacteria have also been described as able to break down lignin, and to have a central role in recycling this plant polymer. Nevertheless, bacterial deconstruction of lignin has not been fully elucidated yet. Direct analysis of environmental samples using metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metaproteomics approaches is a powerful strategy to describe/discover enzymes, metabolic pathways, and microorganisms involved in lignin breakdown. Indeed, the use of these complementary techniques leads to a better understanding of the composition, function, and dynamics of microbial communities involved in lignin deconstruction. We focus on omics approaches and their contribution to the discovery of new enzymes and reactions that impact the development of lignin-based bioprocesses.

scholarly journals Enhanced catalytic ozonation of ibuprofen using a 3D structured catalyst with MnO2 nanosheets on carbon microfibers

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guhankumar Ponnusamy ◽  
Hajar Farzaneh ◽  
Yongfeng Tong ◽  
Jenny Lawler ◽  
Zhaoyang Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Removal Efficiency ◽  
Active Sites ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
Catalytic Ozonation ◽  
Heterogeneous Catalytic ◽  
Structured Catalyst ◽  
Dimensional Network ◽  
Carbon Microfibers

AbstractHeterogeneous catalytic ozonation is an effective approach to degrade refractory organic pollutants in water. However, ozonation catalysts with combined merits of high activity, good reusability and low cost for practical industrial applications are still rare. This study aims to develop an efficient, stable and economic ozonation catalyst for the degradation of Ibuprofen, a pharmaceutical compound frequently detected as a refractory pollutant in treated wastewaters. The novel three-dimensional network-structured catalyst, comprising of δ-MnO2 nanosheets grown on woven carbon microfibers (MnO2 nanosheets/carbon microfiber), was synthesized via a facile hydrothermal approach. Catalytic ozonation performance of Ibuprofen removal in water using the new catalyst proves a significant enhancement, where Ibuprofen removal efficiency of close to 90% was achieved with a catalyst loading of 1% (w/v). In contrast, conventional ozonation was only able to achieve 65% removal efficiency under the same operating condition. The enhanced performance with the new catalyst could be attributed to its significantly increased available surface active sites and improved mass transfer of reaction media, as a result of the special surface and structure properties of this new three-dimensional network-structured catalyst. Moreover, the new catalyst displays excellent stability and reusability for ibuprofen degradation over successive reaction cycles. The facile synthesis method and low-cost materials render the new catalyst high potential for industrial scaling up. With the combined advantages of high efficiency, high stability, and low cost, this study sheds new light for industrial applications of ozonation catalysts.

scholarly journals Redox initiation in semicontinuous polymerization to search for specific mechanical properties of copolymers

e-Polymers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 613-623
Author(s):  
José Manuel Sandoval-Díaz ◽  
Francisco Javier Rivera-Gálvez ◽  
Marta Fernández-García ◽  
Carlos Federico Jasso-Gastinel
Keyword(s):  
Low Cost ◽  
Mechanical Analysis ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
Size Exclusion ◽  
Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Polymerization Reaction ◽  
Redox Initiation ◽  
Initiation System ◽  
Feeding Profile ◽  
Chain Composition

AbstractIn this work, for a semicontinuous emulsion polymerization reaction, it is shown that using a redox initiation system at 40°C, substantial modifications in copolymer chain composition with conversion can be easily obtained. To test controllable trajectories for comonomer feeding, linear and parabolic profiles were chosen to get different types of chain composition variations for the 50/50 w/w styrene/n-butyl acrylate system. For the “forced composition copolymers,” the molecular weight averages and distribution were obtained by size exclusion chromatography. The composition along conversion was followed by proton nuclear magnetic resonance to determine the weight composition distribution (WCD) of the copolymer chains. Mechanodynamic (dynamic-mechanical analysis), tensile, and hardness tests exhibited consistent results depending on the WCD that outcomes from the respective feeding profile. The results confirm that this methodology is of great potential for industrial applications when looking for synergy in copolymer properties, and low-cost processes.

scholarly journals Bacterial Nanocellulose in Dentistry: Perspectives and Challenges

Molecules ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Hélida Gomes de Oliveira Barud ◽  
Robson Rosa da Silva ◽  
Marco Antonio Costa Borges ◽  
Guillermo Raul Castro ◽  
Sidney José Lima Ribeiro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tissue Repair ◽  
Biomedical Applications ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Pulp Tissue ◽  
Bacterial Nanocellulose ◽  
Artificial Blood ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Artificial Blood Vessels ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Dressing Materials

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a natural polymer that has fascinating attributes, such as biocompatibility, low cost, and ease of processing, being considered a very interesting biomaterial due to its options for moldability and combination. Thus, BC-based compounds (for example, BC/collagen, BC/gelatin, BC/fibroin, BC/chitosan, etc.) have improved properties and/or functionality, allowing for various biomedical applications, such as artificial blood vessels and microvessels, artificial skin, and wounds dressing among others. Despite the wide applicability in biomedicine and tissue engineering, there is a lack of updated scientific reports on applications related to dentistry, since BC has great potential for this. It has been used mainly in the regeneration of periodontal tissue, surgical dressings, intraoral wounds, and also in the regeneration of pulp tissue. This review describes the properties and advantages of some BC studies focused on dental and oral applications, including the design of implants, scaffolds, and wound-dressing materials, as well as carriers for drug delivery in dentistry. Aligned to the current trends and biotechnology evolutions, BC-based nanocomposites offer a great field to be explored and other novel features can be expected in relation to oral and bone tissue repair in the near future.

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