Background: Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD), a source of non-thermal plasma, is used in surface decontamination. Objective: To study the effect of DBD plasma treatment, we evaluated the effect of plasma exposure time on inactivation of Bacillus subtilis. Results: Applying the DBD plasma to the culture of B. subtilis caused complete sterilization of the surface without any thermal effects. In...

BACKGROUND Lignocellulosic biomass is a renewable, naturally mass-produced form of stored solar energy. Thermochemical pretreatment processes have been developed to address the challenge of biomass recalcitrance, however the optimization, cost reduction, and scalability of these processes remain as obstacles to the adoption of biofuel production processes at the industrial scale. In this study,...

This paper explores how the visible features of segmentedflow, under reaction conditions, can be used in lab-scale multiphase heterogeneous catalysis. Continuous-flow microreactors are now routinely used in bench-scale synthesis and optimization applications, owing to their small reactant inventory, negligible heat effects at small scales, and fast mixing. However, miniaturizing multiphase hete...

The Advanced High-Temperature Reactor is a new reactor concept that combines four existing technologies in a new way: (1) coated-particle graphite-matrix nuclear fuels (traditionally used for helium-cooled reactors), (2) Brayton power cycles, (3) passive safety systems and plant designs from liquid-metal-cooled fast reactors, and (4) low-pressure molten-salt coolants with boiling points far abo...

Bubble column reactors are used in a wide variety of applications such as multiphase bioreactors, catalytic slurry reactors, and absorption processes. The superficial gas velocity-gas holdup relationship and transition point are two important parameters for characterizing the hydrodynamics of a bubble column reactor. In this study, systematic investigation of a nitrogen - water - glass bead...

Hydrogen and electricity produced from coal will represent a significant share in the energy mix within the foreseeable future. Various novel processes are developed or currently under development for hydrogen and electricity production from coal derived syngas. The commercial coal to hydrogen and coal to electricity processes include the coal gasification-water gas shift process and integrated...

This report summarizes work to examine interstage heating and cooling options for multiple reheat helium Brayton cycle power conversion system (PCS) designs. Previous work has demonstrated that thermal powers in the range of 2400 MWt can be readily derived from combining multiple single-expansion units derived from the 600-MWt, vertical shaft gas-turbine module helium reactor (GT-MHR). This PCS...

The region of the Xenopus laevis estrogen receptor responsible for interaction with DNA, the DNA binding domain (DBD), has been cloned and overexpressed in Escherichia coli using a T7 RNA polymerase expression system. Extracts from cells transformed with the DBD expression vector contain a single protein which reacts with polyclonal antibodies to estrogen receptor and exhibits sequence-specific...