Search results for "TP155-156"
showing 10 items of 115 documents
A Novel System for Measuring Damaging Impacts on Table Olives
2015
The consumer today demands high quality products; fruit with defects or in poor condition generate dissatisfaction and a consequent reduction in consumption. In recent years, interesting systems have been used (i. e. "artificial fruit") in order to identify the cause of damage during mechanical harvesting and/or post-harvest operations. In this paper, the authors present a new system designed to measure the impacts received by table olives in the processing stages from harvesting to packaging. The device is an instrumented sphere designed and implemented by the Agricultural Mechanics Section of the Department of Agricultural and Forest Sciences, University of Palermo, Italy. It contains a t…
A Brief Review on the Resistance-in-Series Model in Membrane Bioreactors (MBRs)
2019
The cake layer deposited on the membrane modules of membrane bioreactors (MBRs), especially under a submerged configuration, represents a relevant and fundamental mechanism deeply influencing the development of membrane fouling. It negatively affects the total resistance to filtration, while exerting a positive effect as a “pre-filter„ promoting the “dynamic membrane„ that protects the physical membrane from internal fouling. These two opposite phenomena should be properly managed, where the submerged membranes are usually subjected to a periodical cake layer removal through ordinary (permeate backwashing and air scouring) and/or irregular cleaning actions (manual ph…
Engineered Membranes for Residual Cell Trapping on Microfluidic Blood Plasma Separation Systems: A Comparison between Porous and Nanofibrous Membranes
2021
Blood-based clinical diagnostics require challenging limit-of-detection for low abundance, circulating molecules in plasma. Micro-scale blood plasma separation (BPS) has achieved remarkable results in terms of plasma yield or purity, but rarely achieving both at the same time. Here, we proposed the first use of electrospun polylactic-acid (PLA) membranes as filters to remove residual cell population from continuous hydrodynamic-BPS devices. The membranes hydrophilicity was improved by adopting a wet chemistry approach via surface aminolysis as demonstrated through Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Water Contact Angle analysis. The usability of PLA-membranes was assessed through de…
Light Scattering as an Easy Tool to Measure Vesicles Weight Concentration
2020
Over the last few decades, liposomes have emerged as promising drug delivery systems and effective membrane models for studying biophysical and biological processes. For all applications, knowing their concentration after preparation is crucial. Thus, the development of methods for easily controlling vesicles concentration would be of great utility. A new assay is presented here, based on a suitable analysis of light scattering intensity from liposome dispersions. The method, tested for extrusion preparations, is precise, easy, fast, non-destructive and uses a tiny amount of sample. Furthermore, the scattering intensity can be measured indifferently at different angles, or even by using the…
Fixed Bed Adsorption of Drugs on Silica Aerogel from Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Solutions
2013
Supercritical adsorption coupled with the high adsorption capacity of silica aerogel allows the preparation of a new kind of delivery systems of poor water soluble drugs. In order to overcome drawbacks of conventional techniques where the use of liquid solvents can cause the fracture of aerogel porous structure, in this work a new adsorption process of drugs from a supercritical mixture is proposed. Adsorption takes place from a fluid solution of the drug in supercritical CO2and ethanol as cosolvent. A fixed bed adsorption plant has been developed to allow fast mixing of fluid phase and effective contact in the adsorption column. The use of ethanol as cosolvent allows to overcome the limita…
Fourth‐generation glucose sensors composed of copper nanostructures for diabetes management: A critical review
2022
Abstract More than five decades have been invested in understanding glucose biosensors. Yet, this immensely versatile field has continued to gain attention from the scientific world to better understand and diagnose diabetes. However, such extensive work done to improve glucose sensing devices has still not yielded desirable results. Drawbacks like the necessity of the invasive finger‐pricking step and the lack of optimization of diagnostic interventions still need to be considered to improve the testing process of diabetic patients. To upgrade the glucose‐sensing devices and reduce the number of intermediary steps during glucose measurement, fourth‐generation glucose sensors (FGGS) have be…
ADVANCED STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF LOCAL BUBBLE SIZE DISTRIBUTIONS IN 2D GAS FLUIDIZED BEDS
2009
The principal difficulty in analysing fluidization quality and bubble dynamics is related to the possibility of measuring or predicting the physical and geometrical properties of gas bubbles rising in a granular medium. Even the development of detailed experimental correlations gives poor results, being necessary a fully statistical approach. On the above basis, the present work focuses on the statistical analysis of the behaviour of a 2-D fluidized bed operating under bubbling and slugging conditions, performing measurements of Local Bubble Size Distributions (BSD) along the bed. The analysis allowed to observe a characteristic bimodal shape of BSDs for different particles dimension and fl…
Case Studies of Macro-and Microplastics Pollution in Coastal Waters and Rivers: Is There a Solution With New Removal Technologies and Policy Actions?.
2020
This opinion paper on microplastics pollution has selected different aspects and case studies of micro and macro-plastic litter pollution in coastal waters, and rivers. We point out a discussion on this topic and ask ourselves if there is a solution to the global problem by developing new microplastics removal technologies as well as policy actions. The first two case studies are related with macroplastics marine litter in beaches, a third report describes a new simple sampling device for microplastics in coastal and nearshore areas, five case study assess microplastics pollution in worldwide coastal environments, sediments and catchments (India, Mexico, Australia, Europe and the Nordic Sea…
Case Study of Potential Production of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) from Livestock Wastes in Mediterranean Islands
2017
The aim of this work is to evaluate the potential production of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) from livestock wastes that are commonly found on Mediterranean islands, by using the island of Malta as a case study. Organic wastes in the form of livestock manure and slurry, as well as other by-products originating from the food transformation industry in the making of alcoholic beverages and the processing of olives, tomatoes and other streams, if mixed in such a way to achieve a correct C/N ratio, can be subjected to anaerobic co-digestion for the production of biogas and digestate. Biogas can be further transformed into biomethane, a fuel that can be used to power surface transportation and …
Pressure Retarded Osmosis: a Membrane Process for Environmental Sustainability
2016
Salinity Gradient Power (SGP) based on the controlled mixing between two solutions at different salinities is a viable alternative to produce power from renewable sources. Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO) is one of the most promising technologies proposed so far for the exploitation of such energy source. Apart from the typical source of salinity gradients, namely river water and seawater, more and more interest has been raised recently towards the use of non-conventional saline solutions. In this work, water originating from a sewage treatment plant is used as the dilute solution (feed solution), while brine exiting from a desalination plant is used as the concentrate (draw solution), thus …