Biochar reduces nitrate level in red beet.

Impacts of red beet consumption both on human and animal health are subject of intense research. In particular, products that are not heat-processed contain plethora of bioactive compounds that hold promise against numerous degenerative and aging-associated diseases. However, high level of nitrates (typically more than 2 g NO3- kg-1) whose health effects are perceived with reasoned objections counterbalance these benefits. Following the above, from a certain level, the increased consumption of red beet has contrary impacts, creating a limiting factor not only from the economic point of view but also in terms of beneficial compounds intake. Reduction of NO3- levels (- 35%) has been achieved by soil amendment via increased doses of biochar. The data obtained indicates that the mechanism can be explained as follows. The soil improvement reduces soil density, increases soil temperature, improves water retention, and other prerequisites for increased activity of soil microorganisms. Accelerated metabolism of soil biota turned more nitrogen from fertilizers into organic forms. Hence, less mineral nitrogen is left for red beet intake.

Uncovering a New Moral Dilemma of Economic Optimization in Biotechnological Processing.

The trend of emerging biorefineries is to process the harvest as efficiently as possible and without any waste. From the most valuable phytomass, refined medicines, enzymes, dyes and other special reactants are created. Functional foods, food ingredients, oils, alcohol, solvents, plastics, fillers and a wide variety of other chemical products follow. After being treated with nutrient recovery techniques (for fertilizer production), biofuels or soil improvers are produced from the leftovers. Economic optimization algorithms have confirmed that such complex biorefineries can be financially viable only when a high degree of feedstock concentration is included. Because the plant material is extremely voluminous before processing, the farming intensity of special plants increases in the nearest vicinity of agglomerations where the biorefineries are built for logistical reasons. Interdisciplinary analyses revealed that these optimization measures lead to significantly increased pollen levels in neighbouring urban areas and subsequently an increased risk of allergies, respectively costs to the national health system. A new moral dilemma between the shareholder's profit and public interest was uncovered and subjected to disputation.

Daphnia magna demonstrated sufficient sensitivity in techno-economic optimization of lignocellulose bioethanol production.

Notable progress has been achieved in the past two decades regarding production of different enzymatic mixtures for hydrolysis of the lignocellulose matrix. Nevertheless, the hydrolysing mixtures remain slow and require tempering, which results in high-energy demands and bad financial results. Use of acids or alkali at a very high temperature and pressure accelerates the process more than ten times wherein the energy requirements are approximately equal. However, these elevated reaction conditions might cause the breakdown of complex lignin formula into substances that have the potential to inhibit subsequent fermentation processes. Formation of these breakdown products may be prevented by selecting the optimum process parameters, but their acquisition requires either a large number of expensive analytical techniques or equally large amounts of slow fermentation tests. An inexpensive and time saving alternative that is based on the sensitivity of chosen organisms to these inhibitors was designed and financially assessed. It was confirmed that the method is technically feasible and economically viable with significant potential to reduce the bioethanol production cost.