Search results for "fluid"

Molecular Dynamics simulation of evaporation processes of fluid bridges confined in slit-like pore

2009

A simple fluid, described by point-like particles interacting via the Lennard-Jones potential, is considered under confinement in a slit geometry between two walls at distance Lz apart for densities inside the vapor-liquid coexistence curve. Equilibrium then requires the coexistence of a liquid "bridge" between the two walls, and vapor in the remaining pore volume. We study this equilibrium for several choices of the wall-fluid interaction (corresponding to the full range from complete wetting to complete drying, for a macroscopically thick film), and consider also the kinetics of state changes in such a system. In particular, we study how this equilibrium is established by diffusion proces…

Removal of pharmaceuticals from municipal wastewaters at laboratory scale by treatment with activated sludge and biostimulation.

2017

Abstract Municipal wastewater containing 21 pharmaceutical compounds, as well as activated sludge obtained from the aeration tank of the same wastewater treatment plant were used in lab-scale biodegradation experiments. The concentrations of pharmaceutical compounds were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to Orbitrap high-resolution mass spectrometry and ranged from 13.2 ng/L to 51.8 μg/L. Activated sludge was characterized in the terms of phylogenetic and catabolic diversity of microbial community, as well as its morphology. Proteobacteria (24.0%) represented the most abundant phylum, followed by Bacteroidetes (19.8%) and Firmicutes (13.2%). Bioaugmentation of was…

Polylactic is a Sustainable, Low Absorption, Low Autofluorescence Alternative to Other Plastics for Microfluidic and Organ-on-Chip Applications

2020

Organ-on-chip (OOC) devices are miniaturized devices replacing animal models in drug discovery and toxicology studies. The majority of OOC devices are made from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), an elastomer widely used in microfluidic prototyping, but posing a number of challenges to experimentalists, including leaching of uncured oligomers and uncontrolled absorption of small compounds. Here we assess the suitability of polylactic acid (PLA) as a replacement material to PDMS for microfluidic cell culture and OOC applications. We changed the wettability of PLA substrates and demonstrated the functionalization method to be stable over a time period of at least 9 months. We successfully cultured …

Discrimination between Single Protein Conformations Using Dynamic SERS

2016

In biomedicine and biophysics, the discrimination of protein conformations is of critical importance for identifying the unfolding states in the diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases. We develop a dynamic Raman spectroscopic approach based on a statistical analysis of the time series of spectral fingerprints of single protein. We show that the unfolded state of bovine serum albumin can be identified in the time series using the fluctuations of the Raman bands of some amino acids, tryptophan, tyrosine, leucine, and histidine, acting as biomarkers. The statistical analysis induces also the sorting between physisorption and chemisorption events. This is confirmed by the spectral analysis of …

Hydrogeological Behaviour and Geochemical Features of Waters in Evaporite-Bearing Low-Permeability Successions: A Case Study in Southern Sicily, Italy

2020

Knowledge about the hydrogeological behaviour of heterogeneous low-permeability media is an important tool when designing anthropogenic works (e.g., landfills) that could potentially have negative impacts on the environment and on people&rsquo

Relationships between soil water repellency and microbial community composition under different plant species in a Mediterranean semiarid forest

2014

Abstract Soil water repellency (SWR) can influence many hydrological soil properties, including water infiltration, uneven moisture distribution or water retention. In the current study we investigated how variable SWR persistence in the field is related to the soil microbial community under different plant species (P. halepensis, Q. rotundifolia, C. albidus and R. officinalis) in a Mediterranean forest. The soil microbial community was determined through phospholipid fatty acids (PLFA). The relationships between microbiological community structure and the soil properties pH, Glomalin Related Soil Protein (GRSP) and soil organic matter (SOM) content were also studied. Different statistical …

Active and Passive Motion in Complex pH‐Fields

2021

Microfluidic Synthesis of Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Particle Transport Systems which Can Be Remote‐Controlled Magnetically

2019

Nanomaterials for biosensors and biomedical applications, International conference (Jurmala, Latvia, July 2-4, 2019) : Book of Abstracts

2019

The conference is supported by the University of Latvia under the ERDF project No. 1.1.1.5/18/I/016 and European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 778157-CanBioSe and No 777926-NanoSurf

Effect of temperature and organic nutrients on the biodegradation of linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) during the composting of anaerobically diges…

2004

Limits on the application of biosolids (anaerobically processed sludges from wastewater treatment plants) as fertilizers for the amendment of soil are becoming greater because of the accumulation of recalcitrant substances, making necessary the use of techniques that bring the concentration of xenobiotics to lower concentrations than those permitted. In general, the biosolids composting process is sufficient to reduce the usual concentration of linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS) to low levels. In this work, an assessment is made on the effect of temperature in the capacity of enriched bacterial populations to biodegrade LAS, together with the influence that the available nutrients may hav…