The solar photo-Fenton process at neutral pH applied to microcystin-LR degradation: Fe2+, H2O2 and reaction matrix effects

This work evaluated the efficiency of solar photo-Fenton at near-neutral pH for microcystin-LR degradation in synthetic and natural water samples, and discussed inorganic ions effect, iron precipitation and phytotoxicity before and after the process.

A robust, hand-powered, instrument-free sample preparation system for point-of-care pathogen detection

Here, we describe a simple, universal protocol for use in nucleic acid testing-based pathogen diagnostics, which requires only hand-powered sample preparation, including the processes of pathogen enrichment and nucleic acid isolation. The protocol uses low-cost amine-functionalized diatomaceous earth with a 1-μm Teflon filter as a reaction matrix in both stages of the process, using homobifunctional imidoesters. Using a simple syringe as a pump, the capture efficiency for a large sample volume (<50 mL) was enhanced by up to 98.3%, and the detection limit was 1 CFU/mL, 100-fold better than that of common commercial nucleic acid isolation kit. This protocol can also be combined with commercialized 96-well filter plates for robust sample preparation. Our proposed system is robust, simple, low-cost, universal, and rapid (taking <20 min), and it works regardless of the ambient environment and sample pretreatment, requiring no electricity or instruments. Its benefits include the simplicity of producing its components and its ease of operation, and it can be readily integrated with other assays for point-of-care diagnostics.

A Kinetic Assessment of Entrained Flow Gasification Modeling

A kinetics assessment of the quasi-global homogeneous and heterogeneous reaction mechanisms is carried out for entrained flow coal gasification modeling. Accurate closure of the chemical source term in gasification modeling necessitates a detailed study of turbulence-chemistry interaction. Toward this end, a time-scale analysis of the homogeneous reactions is discussed using eigenvalue analysis of the reaction rate Jacobian matrix. A singular value decomposition (SVD) of the stoichiometric reaction matrix is performed to assess the behavior of the homogeneous reactions in a reduced species vector space. The significant factors affecting the heterogeneous char reactions are assessed, and the relative importance of bulk diffusion and inherent char kinetics is analyzed in a gasifier. The overall study is carried out using numerical and experimental results of an actual pilot scale gasifier.