which carbon in gas reacts with, for example, copper to form graphene. False colour image comparing graphene created on a pristine platinum surface with graphene created on the liquid layer of platinum silicide.
so that carbon atoms in methane gas brushing the surface are inclined more to form large flakes of graphene.
which can be a useful component of biofuels. The work opens the door for scientists to manipulate such organisms to produce compounds useful as fuels or medicines."
"We now know enough about redirecting traffic inside the cell that we can engineer cells to make more of the products that have high value.
This is useful not only for making commercially viable biofuels but also commodities such as pharmaceuticals,"said microbiologist Alex Beliaev, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory,
"In Pacific Northwest National Laboratorys Microbial Cell Dynamics Laboratory, scientists produce microorganisms for biofuels and alternative fuel research.
it's under particular scrutiny for its potential to make biofuels and other high-value products."
a compound that can be processed into biodiesel and higher-value products, such as soaps and detergents.
because the central metabolic pipeline has enough elasticity to accommodate perturbations. But we now know we need to use metabolic controls to push toward end products.
multi-layer graphene by varying the ambient pressure, ambient gas, temperature and time during the treatment.
In that case, both the plastic and the oil-based sauce are hydrophobic and interact together.
and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carcinogenic compounds formed from incomplete combustion of fuels, from contaminated soil. The process is irreversible
"The research focused on a class of oxides called perovskites that are of interest for applications such as gas sensing, water purification, batteries, and fuel cells.
and is produced easily may lead to better gas separation, water purification, drug delivery and DNA recognition, according to an international team of researchers.
Not only does desalination use fossil fuels which emit the very same carbon emissions that the California government insists caused the drought in the first place,
stars and clouds of gas behave and what they look like. Ms Loi supervisor Tara Murphy said her work was impressive. t is to Cleo great credit that she
and 5500 metres up and can lift more than 3000kg of payload and fuel. That gives tactical planners incredible flexibility
and identifying small vessels in various sea states as well as oil and gas platforms and if the RAAF wants others systems such as weather radar
multispectral cameras and gas sensors to assess the health of someone looking into it. It does this by examining the person face,
while the gas sensors take samples of the user breath looking for compounds that give an indication of how much they drink or smoke.
#Living lasers made by injecting oil droplets into human cells Light fantastic (Image: Matja Humar and Seok Hyun Yun) Individual cells have been turned into tiny lasers. t actually super-easy,
The first involved injecting each one with a tiny oil droplet, forming an optical cavity which could be filled with fluorescent dye.
they performed the same function as the oil droplets, emitting laser light when excited. The final way involved exploiting the fatty droplets that exist naturally within living cells. e all have these fat cells inside our tissue.
Other uses might include engineering oil-eating bacteria to use on a spill. They could be killed off
Forkey said that he saw a strong pipeline of opportunities particularly in the area of micro-optics
#Oil and gas companies target coal industry as climate deal comes closer As the global climate deal draws closer,
oil and gas companies are claiming that coal is the major factor that is posing a threat to climate.
A letter was sent to UN climate officials who are working on a major climate deal to be adopted in Paris in December by six major European oil
and gas companies including Royal dutch shell and BP. They mentioned that they are ready to play their part and work together with renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.
According to them, natural gas and oil are so much part of the problem. However, gas produced by many oil companies release about half the CO2 EMISSIONS of coal fired plants and lower levels of air pollution.
In an energy conference in Paris on Tuesday, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said that a coal-togas switch ensures a sustainable energy system tomorrow.
He also called natural gas a clean-burning ally to renewable such as solar and wind. Counterstrikes against fellow fossil fuels industries have been resisted by the coal industry.
It has opted instead to draw attention to new technologies that improve the efficiency of coal fired power plants or capture their CO2 EMISSIONS.
Many environmental advocacy groups are skeptic behind the attacks of oil-and-gas industry's on coal.
They don want fossil fuel industries to influence the climate policy i
#A blood test can detect every virus that ever infected you A test has been developed to detect every known human virus using just a single drop of blood.
"We recognized that the microscopy part of the drug development pipeline was much slower than it could be designed
when he was hit by an oil truck. lived in pain for 28 years, says Olafsson. fter 50-plus operations,
unlike a lot of the petroleum-based alternatives that manufacturers use to build the bases of modern computer chips.
A Science article commenting on the new superlubricated surface mentions that"nearly one-third of a vehicle's fuel energy is spent on overcoming engine
reduce the amount of fuel used. When the diamond nanoparticles came in contact with the thin sheets of graphene (carbon that's only an atom thick) the graphene rolled up around the diamond nanoparticles,
the startup says they can save a lot of fuel on fishing vessels and improve the chances of big game for line fishers.
While a single footstep will not solve our fossil fuel problems or give enough energy to even move the car by an inch,
instead, relying on kerosene generators, battery-powered lamps or candles for light during the night.
Kerosene and candles are both fire risks, and kerosene produces toxins that can poison people in the short term,
and cause lung problems in the long term. Batteries contain strong acids, and pollute ground and water when disposed of.
distinguished professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, and Steven P. Levitan, Ph d.,John A. Jurenko professor of electrical and computer engineering, integrated models for self-oscillating polymer gels and piezoelectric micro-electric-mechanical systems to devise a new
and petroleum engineering and lead author on the paper, the researchers developed design rules for creating a hybrid"BZ-PZ"material."
#Audi has made a synthetic, high-grade fuel from plant sugars Just last month, German car manufacturer Audi invented a carbon-neutral diesel fuel,
made from water, carbon dioxide and renewable energy sources, and they say their pilot plant in Dresden will pump out 160 litres of the of the stuff every day in the coming months to power their Audi a8 cars.
Now, theye announced the development of another new type of environmentally friendly, petroleum-free synthetic fuel,
the fuel is produced by converting corn-derived glucose-a renewable source of biomass sugar-into isobutane gas.
isobutane gas is also one of the staples of the petrochemical industry. About 13 million tonnes of it is extracted annually from oil,
and used to produce various types of fuels, plastics and elastomers. In this case, the team at Global Bioenergies refined it into a clear, high-grade,'unleadedfuel."
"The next step in the process was to run the material through a conditioning and purification process, allowing it to be collected
"Some of it was sent then to Germany to be converted into isooctane fuel, creating a pure, 100 octane gasoline."
"That last point refers to the octane rating of the fuel, which is the standard measure for how much compression a type of engine
or aviation fuel can withstand before it ignites. While a low octane rating is better for diesel engines,
a high rating is required for gasoline engines, and the higher the rating, the more efficient it is to use.
The team says their Isooctane fuel can be used as an additive to regular unleaded fuel to make it more efficient,
or can be used on its own as a fuel. And because their new fuel contains no benzene or sulphur
they say it burns very cleanly. While the next step of the process will be figuring out how to produce the fuel in large quantities,
the company also aims to modify the manufacturing process so that no biomass is required-just water, hydrogen,
CO2 and sunlight, like how they're producing their new'e-diesel'fuel.""We're thinking we're bringing greenness to a field that desperately needs greenness,"Rick Bockrath,
"It's basically how we're moving away from an oil-based economy towards something that has a renewable, sustainable future to it."
"With an'e-gas'-or synthetic methane-being made on an industrial scale already, and projects dedicated to getting'e-ethanol Audi'e-diesel'and Audi'e-benzin'on the market in the coming years,
it hard not to be impressed by a car company that appears to be invested so in making petroleum-based fuels a thing of the past
#Science has found a gene for pain Scientists have identified a gene essential to the ability to sense pain, a discovery
with a visitor centre in the pipeline that will provide running updates on the bridge's process."
#Scientists figure out how to make solar cells produce fuel AND electricity A new type of solar cell can convert liquid water into clean hydrogen fuel 10 times more effectively than any other technology,
and uses 10,000 times less precious material in the process. Invented by researchers in The netherlands,
Over the past few years, scientists have been figuring out how to take things one step further by using solar cells to produce both fuel and electricity.
Previous studies have shown that connecting an existing silicon solar cell to a water-splitting battery can produce hydrogen fuel,
like an all-in-one solar fuel cell, but semiconductor materials aren cheap either. A team Eindhoven University of Technology investigated the potential of gallium phosphide (Gap),
but they discovered a whole new way to make solar fuel.""This immediately boosted the yield of hydrogen by a factor of 10 to 2. 9 percent,
when it comes to producing solar fuel, but the cost of the system, because if it not cheaper than what we already get from fossil fuels,
no one going to use it no matter how much better for the environment it is. Their challenge now is to figure out how to increase the yield of their gallium phosphide grids
In short, for a solar fuels future we cannot ignore gallium phosphide any longer.""The results have been published in Nature Communications u
#Flexible methane production from electricity and biomass The variable operation modes were the biggest challenge during development says Project Head Siegfried Bajohr of the Engler-Bunte Institute (EBI) of KIT.
From the products of a biomass gasification plant i e. hydrogen carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide the Demosng pilot plant directly produces methane and water by means of a nickel catalyst (SNG operation.
As conventional methanation processes reach their limits at this point we have developed a new reactor concept Bajohr says.
Metallic honeycombs are used already as catalytic convertors of exhaust gas in cars. They are characterized by a high thermal conductivity and mechanical robustness with a low pressure loss during alternating operation modes.
There it will be integrated into the gas flows of a biomass gasification plant utilizing wooden residues.
In the future it might be possible to efficiently operate even smaller decentralized units e g. at rural biogas facilities.
and transporting it in our gas grids in the form of methane Thomas Kolb Head of the Engler-Bunte Institute of KIT emphasizes.
Frank Graf Section Head of the test laboratory of the German Technical and Scientific Association of Gas and Water (DVGW) at KIT adds:
So far admixture of hydrogen in the natural gas grid has been limited to a few percent as storage distribution
Methanation has the advantage that the infrastructure existing for the distribution and storage of natural gas and the standard appliances can be used further without any modifications
or readjustments being required. Via an effective methanation wind and solar power can be fed into the natural gas grid without any limitations.
Demosng demonstrates how sustainable European innovations are Karl-Friedrich Ziegahn Head of the Natural and Built Environment Division of KIT and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the European KIC Innoenergy says.
For example it might be converted decentrally with the carbon dioxide produced by the about 800000 biogas facilities
and stored in the form of methane. Thanks to the newly developed honeycomb catalyst also smaller and medium-sized plants can be operated efficiently y
Large oil filled transformers are found in all power and switching stations as well as in many large buildings.
If an internal short-circuit occurs an electrical arc gas formation and pressure increase will be the result.
All large transformers use oil for insulation and cooling as this greatly reduces energy losses and improves reliability compared to dry type transformers.
The increasing focus on energy efficiency actions might also enforce a substitution of many smaller dry isolated transformers with oil filled transformers.
The arc which occurs in such situations makes the oil evaporate and form combustible gasses.
In the wake of a large internal fault the gas expands violently causing a powerful and extremely rapid pressure build up in the transformer tank.
The fire may also be fed with oil from the tank. If so it will keep burning Two different measures are adopted usually to prevent fire and explosion incidents of this sort:#
and allowing for vacuum filling of oil. However the stiffness that is usually incorporated has an unfortunate side-effect Nordhagen points out.
when the electric arc is burning causing the pressure in the oil and gas to rise dramatically.
High internal pressure is undesirable for many reasons says the SINTEF scientist: Combustible gases and oil can leak out of gaskets
and penetrators which may ignite fires or explosions. Moreover stresses occur within the material of the tank increasing the probability that it will rupture.
and construction materials to keep fuel-generated warmth inside. Cui's team wanted to take a different approach
Organelles are composed primarily of lipids--substances like fats and oils, so-called secondary gene products for
an element that one day could lessen the world's dependence on oil. Dr. Melanie Mormile professor of biological sciences at Missouri S&t and her team discovered the bacterium Halanaerobium hydrogeninformans in Soap Lake Washington.
The infrastructure isn't in place now for hydrogen to replace gasoline as a fuel for planes trains and automobiles.
But if hydrogen becomes an alternative to gasoline Halanaerobium hydrogeniformans mass-produced on an industrial scale might be one solution
Mormile holds two patents for her work on the Soap Lake bacterium's biohydrogen formation under very alkaline and saline conditions.
#Researchers identify materials to improve biofuel petroleum processing The University of Minnesota has two patents pending on the research
Petrochemical and biofuel refineries use materials called zeolites that act as molecular sieves to sort filter and trap chemical compounds as well as catalyze chemical reactions necessary to produce
and upgrade fuel and chemical feedstock from petroleum-based and renewable resources. There are more than 200 known zeolites and hundreds of thousands predicted zeolite variations.
The key to improving biofuel and petrochemical processes is to find which zeolites work best.
The first problem researchers tackled is the current multi-step ethanol purification process encountered in biofuel production.
One of the last steps involves the separation of ethanol from water. Researchers found a few all-silica zeolites with superior performance that contain pores
and channels with the ability to accommodate ethanol molecules but to shun hydrogen bonding with water molecules.
and materials science professor Michael Tsapatsis'lab was found to be so effective that it could change the ethanol/water separation process from a multi-step distillation process to a single-step adsorptive process.
Similar zeolitic materials could also have possible applications for separations in the biofuels and petrochemical industry.
The second problem researchers examined targets the upgrading of petroleum compounds into higher-value lubricant and diesel products.
which affect the pour point and viscosity of lubricants and other petroleum products. Researchers say defining appropriate sorbents
The"fuel"used is wastewater, and the products of the process are purified water droplets and electricity.
Scientists have developed now a nacre-inspired nanocomposite that combines exceptional mechanical properties with glass-like transparency and a high gas-and fire-barrier.
but also for gas storage applications and food packaging. In addition, it may be used as an advanced substrate and for encapsulation of oxygen-sensitive organic electronics in flexible displays a
#Oils fats innovation: Use of nanotechnology in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals A Faculty of science Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) lecturer Professor Dr Mahiran Basri not only succeeded in producing new useful substances made of oils
and fats for the industry but also managed to produce them through environmental-friendly ways. This organic synthesis uses enzymes and it is produced through nanotechnology.
Our focus is to process new substances derived from oils and fats she said in an interview at her office.
Gas sensors or implantable chips for medical applications which can gather information about blood sugar levels
it evaporates and the gas molecules that stick to the perovskite, creating an even layer--much like
because the Tc of 50-60 K achieved in the present study is high enough to keep the superconducting state by using a closed-cycle-gas-type cooling system without liquid helium.
#Revolutionary microbe for biofuel production developed Biofuels pioneer Mascoma LLC and the Department of energy's Bioenergy Science Center have developed a revolutionary strain of yeast that could help significantly accelerate the development of biofuels from nonfood plant matter.
The approach could provide a pathway to eventual expansion of biofuels production beyond the current output limited to ethanol derived from corn.
C5 FUEL#,engineered by researchers at Mascoma and BESC, features fermentation and ethanol yields that set a new standard for conversion of biomass sugars from pretreated corn stover--the non-edible portion of corn crops such as the stalk--converting up to 97 percent
of the plant sugars into fuel. Researchers announced that while conventional yeast leaves more than one-third of the biomass sugars unused in the form of xylose,
Mascoma's C5 FUEL#efficiently converts this xylose into ethanol, and it accomplishes this feat in less than 48 hours.
The finding was presented today at the 31st International Fuel Ethanol Workshop in Minneapolis."The ability to partner the combined expertise at Mascoma
and BESC in engineering microbes to release and convert sugars from lignocellulosic biomass has accelerated greatly the translation of basic research outcomes to a commercial product,
and continued efforts through BESC could go a long way toward reducing the cost of ethanol and growing the number of commercial-level ethanol production plants.
which significantly increases overall sugar yield and thereby increases the level of ethanol produced. In fact
"This is just the start of a pipeline of second-generation yeast products planned by Mascoma
and Lallemand Biofuels and Distilled Spirits.""The next step for BESC will be to demonstrate and again validate the application of the consolidated bioprocessing approach using thermophilic,
or heat-loving, bacteria to produce biofuels directly from biomass in a single process o
and sandwiched a layer of oil in between. Then they carefully injected into the mix individual water droplets that had been infused with tiny magnetic nanoparticles.
it could be considered for other sites where uranium was processed for nuclear arsenals or power plant fuel. While the problem isn't widespread,
#Protein discovery fuels redesign of mosquito-based malaria vaccine A promising type of vaccine designed to eradicate malaria by blocking parasite transmission could be a step closer,
such as the creation of manufactured goods, biofuels and therapeutic drugs. Lead author of the study Professor Rudolf Allemann,
'Arrayhydrogen has long been promoted as an emissions-free alternative to gasoline. Despite its sustainable reputation, most commercial-grade hydrogen is made from natural gas,
a fossil fuel that contributes to global warming. As an alternative, scientists have been trying to develop a cheap and efficient way to extract pure hydrogen from water.
A conventional water-splitting device consists of two electrodes submerged in a water-based electrolyte.
'We believe that electrochemical tuning can be used to find new catalysts for other chemical fuels beyond hydrogen.
making it possible to maintain the gas's high temperature with less power and reduced operating costs.
including an oil company in Thailand and Japanese heavy-equipment manufacturer IHI Corp. The process has received eight patents
#Unlocking fermentation secrets open door to new biofuels"This work advances our fundamental understanding of the complex,
system-level process of clostridial acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation, "explained Ting Lu, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Illinois."Simultaneously,
therefore facilitating the development of next-generation biofuels.""Microbial metabolism is a means by which a microbe uses nutrients and generates energy to live
advanced biofuels that can be used directly to fuel your cars,"added Lu, who is affiliated also with the Department of physics
and for guiding strain design and protocol optimization--invaluable for the development of efficient metabolic engineering strategies, expediting the development of advanced biofuels.
Ph d.,distinguished professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, and Steven P. Levitan, Ph d.,John A. Jurenko professor of electrical and computer engineering, integrated models for self-oscillating polymer gels and piezoelectric micro-electric-mechanical systems to devise a new
and petroleum engineering and lead author on the paper, the researchers developed design rules for creating a hybrid"BZ-PZ"material."
magnetic, humidity, gas and sound pressure devices. The first step was to look at fabrication methods. Top-down approaches to graphene device fabrication such as mechanical and chemical exfoliation would not work on a commercial scale,
#Eco-friendly oil spill solution developed An eco-friendly biodegradable green'herding'agent that can be used to clean up light crude oil spills on water has been developed by researchers.
In the case of oil spills, when they are added along the periphery of an oil spill slick,
they contract and thicken the slick or push slicks together so that they can be collected or burned."
Eco-friendly chemical herders as oil spill mitigation chemicals. Science Advances, June 2015 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv. 140026 6
#New method for rapid authentication of edible oils and screening of gutter oils Researchers in Hong kong have developed a new method for rapid authentication of edible oils and screening of gutter oils.
The Food safety and Technology Research Centre under the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology of The Hong kong Polytechnic University (Polyu) has developed a new method for rapid authentication of edible oils and screening
of gutter oils. Authentication of edible oils has been a long-term issue in food safety, and becomes particularly important with the emergence and widespread use of gutter oils in recent years.
However the conventional analytical approach for edible oils is not only labor intensive and time consuming,
but also fails to provide a versatile solution for screening of gutter oils. By setting up a simple analytical protocol and a spectral library of edible oils, the new approach is able to determine the authenticity of a labeled edible oil sample
and hence screened gutter oils within five minutes. The conventional approach for edible oil authentication involves labor-intensive
and time-consuming sample pretreatment and the subsequent chromatographic separation to separate complex sample mixture before mass spectrometric detection, a commonly used technology for identification and quantitation of chemical compounds.
The whole process takes a few hours to analyze one sample. On the other hand identification of gutter oils mainly involves detection of certain food residue markers or toxic and carcinogenic chemicals in the sample.
However, due to the vast diversity of gutter oils, and the fact that target compounds could be removed by processing,
a universal strategy to screen gutter oils is not available at present. Polyu researchers have developed a simplified method for direct analysis of edible oils using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS). In the new MALDI-MS
approach, only simple sample preparation, automatic data acquisition and simple data processing are involved. High quality and highly reproducible MALDI-MS spectra results can be obtained using this method
and a preliminary spectral database of labeled edible oils available in the market has been set up.
Since different types of edible oils have different MALDI-MS spectral patterns, the authenticity of an edible oil sample can then be determined within five minutes by comparing its MALDI-MS spectrum with those of its labeled oil in the established database.
Since this method is capable of authenticating edible oils, it also enables a rapid screening of gutter oils,
given fraudulent mislabeling is a common feature of gutter oils. The related paper has been published recently on Analytica Chimica Acta.
The research team will establish a more complete MALDI spectral library of various edible oils in the coming two years
and improve the library searching technique. In addition, more testing of edible oil samples with different MALDI-MS equipment will be carried out to further validate the new approach h
#Discovery could lead to personalized colon cancer treatment approach A UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center discovery of just how a certain tumor suppressor molecule works to prevent tumor growth could lead to a personalized treatment
approach for colon cancer. In a study published in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers reported that the tumor-suppressing protein AIM2,
or Absent in Melanoma 2, helps prevent colon cancer by restricting a signaling molecule called Akt.
With this finding, the researchers believe theye found a possible drug target for colon cancer patients who lack the tumor suppressor AIM2. everal studies
and clinical evidence suggest AIM2 functions as a tumor suppressor, but until now, wee had very little direct evidence to explains how this occurs,
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