Energetic assessment of fixation of CO2 and subsequent biofuel production using B. cereus SM1 isolated from sewage treatment plant.

The ongoing work on global warming resulting from green house gases (GHGs) has led to explore the possibility of bacterial strains which can fix carbon dioxide (CO2) and can generate value-added products. The present work is an effort in this direction and has carried out an exhaustive batch experiments for the fixation of CO2 using B. Cereus SM1 isolated from sewage treatment plant (STP). The work has incorporated 5-day batch run for gaseous phase inlet CO2 concentration of 13 ± 1 % (%v/v). 84.6 (±5.76) % of CO2 removal was obtained in the gaseous phase at mentioned CO2 concentration (%v/v). Energetic requirement for CO2 fixation was assessed by varying Fe[II] ion concentration (0-200 ppm) on the per-day basis. The cell lysate obtained from CO2 fixation studies (Fe[II] ion = 100 ppm) was analyzed using Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). This analysis confirmed the presence of fatty acids and hydrocarbon as valuable products. The hydrocarbons were found in the range of C11-C22 which is equivalent to light oil. The obtained fatty acids were found in the range of C11-C19. The possibility of fatty acid conversion to biodiesel was explored by carrying out the transesterification reaction. The yield of biodiesel was obtained as 86.5 (±0.048) % under the transesterification reaction conditions. Results of this research work can provide the valuable information in the implementation of biomitigation of CO2 at real scenario.

A carbonyl-decorated two-dimensional polymer as a charge-trapping layer for non-volatile memory storage devices with a high endurance and wide memory window.

The charge-trapping mechanism in conjugated polymers is a performance obstacle in many optoelectronic devices harnessed for non-volatile memory applications. Herein, a carbonyl-decorated organic 2D-polymer (TpDb)-based charge-trapping memory device has been developed with a wide memory window (3.2 V) with low programming and erasing voltages of +3/-2 and -3/+2. The TpDb was synthesized by a potentially scalable solid-state aldol condensation reaction. The inherent structural defects and the semi-conjugated nature of the enone network in TpDb offer effective charge-trapping through the localization of charges in specific functional groups (CO). The interlayer hydrogen bonding enhances the packing density of the 2D-polymer layers thereby improving the memory storage properties of the material. Furthermore, the TpDb exhibits excellent features for non-volatile memory applications including over 10 000 cycles of write/read endurance and a prolonged retention performance of 104 seconds at high temperatures (100 °C).

A rare case of abdominal cocoon caused by brucellosis.

Brucella is the most common zoonosis in the world and is also included among the neglected endemic zoonoses by the World Health Organization. Its clinical presentation is often vague and it is not frequently suspected. A thorough history of social-economic status and animal exposure is often missed. We present a case of abdominal cocoon in a young patient residing at a dairy farm who tested positive for Brucella serology. Timely diagnosis and management prevented the progression of this debilitating condition to intestinal obstruction.

Highly efficient & stable Bi & Sb anodes using lithium borohydride as solid electrolyte in Li-ion batteries.

Herein, we employed Bi and Sb as the negative electrode in all solid-state lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) using LiBH4 as the solid-state electrolyte. The composite anode materials with acetylene black (AB) and LiBH4, prepared by high energy ball-milling, have shown extremely high stability with a high coulombic efficiency of 90-99% over a number of cycles. The gravimetric capacity decayed by only 18 and 5% as compared to the initial volumetric capacity of 4681.7 and 4393.4 mA h cm-3 for Bi and Sb anodes respectively.