1. Plasma aluminium concentration and urinary aluminium excretion were monitored for 4.5 h in rats after the administration of 25 micrograms or 800 micrograms of aluminium as an intravenous bolus, either as aluminium chloride or as aluminium citrate (i.e. aluminium chloride together with sodium citrate). 2. Immediately after the bolus aluminium administration, the plasma aluminium concentration...

Xylanase production from Bacillus pumilus VLK-1 in solid state fermentation was enhanced through optimization of the process using one variable approach. The enzyme production was highest (42324±786 IU/g) upon 96h of incubation at 37°C using wheat bran as a substrate moistened with mineral salt solution (pH 9.0) containing 0.1% folic acid, 0.2% riboflavin and 6.0% yeast extract in the ratio of ...

The European Union (EU) Project Routes aimed to discover new routes in sludge stabilization treatments leading to high-quality digested sludge, suitable for land application. In order to investigate the impact of different enhanced sludge stabilization processes such as (a) thermophilic digestion integrated with thermal hydrolysis pretreatment (TT), (b) sonication before mesophilic/thermophilic...

BACKGROUND Biodiesels produced from transesterification of vegetable oils have a major quality problem due to the presence of precipitates, which need to be removed to avoid clogging of filters and engine failures. These precipitates have been reported to be mostly composed of steryl glucosides (SGs), but so far industrial cost-effective methods to remove these compounds are not available. Here...

Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in young adults is considered by some authors as an autonomous disease, characterized by peculiar risk factor pattern, clinical course and prognosis. We studied, in a group of 96 patients aged < 46 years with recent AMI, the haemorheological parameters (whole-blood, plasma and serum viscosity, haematocrit, whole-blood filterability and erythrocyte deformability...

When red blood cells (RBCs) pass constrictions or small capillaries they need to pass apertures falling well below their own cross section size. We used different means of mechanical stimulations (hypoosmotic swelling, local mechanical stimulation, passing through microfluidic constrictions) to observe cellular responses of human RBCs in terms of intracellular Ca2+-signaling by confocal microsc...

Suspensions of erythrocytes from patients with hemoglobin (Hb) CC disease showed an increased viscosity and decreased filterability suggesting a less deformable cell. Hemolysates prepared from Hb CC erythrocytes had an increased viscosity compared with hemolysates of normal cells, suggesting that the increased viscosity of Hb CC cells in serum was the result of an increased internal viscosity o...

A flow-through pilot-scale system was tested for removal of Cr(VI) from contaminated groundwater in Glendale, California. The process consisted of the reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(lll) using ferrous sulfate followed by coagulation and filtration. Results indicated that the technology could reduce influent Cr(VI) concentrations of 100 microg L(-1) to below detectable levels and also remove total Cr...

A pumped bed-membrane bioreactor (PB-MBR) combining powdered activated carbon (PAC) adsorption with bacterial degradation was studied for the purification of tap water, spiked with 2 mg/l of phenanthrene, to sub-ppm levels. The feedwater was supplemented with nitrogen and phosphorous to reach a COD:N:P ratio of 100:10:1. PAC concentration was maintained at 5 g/l. Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) flat-sh...

This research assessed the use of gypsum (CaSO42H2O) as a skeleton builder for sludge dewatering since polymer conditioning of sludge affected only the rate of water release, not the extent of dewatering. The use of gypsum as a physical conditioner, in association with a polymer, could improve sludge filterability. More significantly, gypsum serves as a skeleton builder, forming a permeable an...