Fungal exopolysaccharides (EPSs) represent an important group of bioactive compounds secreted by fungi. These biopolymers can be utilized individually or in combination with different bioactive substances for a broad range of pharmaceutical field applications, due to their various biological activities, such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, anti-diabetic, and anticoagulant effects. The paper presents an up-to-date review of the main fungal polysaccharides (pullulan, schizophyllan, scleroglucan, botryosphaeran, lentinan, grifolan, and lasiodiplodan), highlighting their structures, producing strains, and useful properties in a double position, as controlled release (rate and selectively targeting) drug carriers, but mostly as active immunomodulating and antitumor compounds in cancer therapy.

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), such as Parkinson’s Disease (PD), Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), are characterized by progressive loss of structure or function of neurons. Current therapies for NDs are only symptomatic and long-term ineffective. This challenge has promoted the development of new therapies against relevant targets in these pathologies. In this review, we will focus on the most promising therapeutic approaches based on dendrimers (DDs) specially designed for the treatment and diagnosis of NDs. DDs are well-defined polymeric structures that provide a multifunctional platform for developing different nanosystems for a myriad of applications. DDs have been proposed as interesting drug delivery systems with the ability to cross the blood−brain barrier (BBB) and increase the bioavailability of classical drugs in the brain, as well as genetic material, by reducing the synthesis of specific targets, as β-amyloid pept... [more]

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In September 2015, the ONU approved the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development, by which all countries of the world are mobilized to adopt a set of goals to be achieved by 2030. Within these goals, the aim of having a responsible production and consumption, as well as taking climate action, made is necessary to design new eco-friendly materials. Another important UN goal is the possibility for all the countries in the world to access affordable energy. The most promising and renewable energy source is solar energy. Current solar cells use non-biodegradable substrates, which generally contribute to environmental pollution at the end of their life cycles. Therefore, the production of green and biodegradable electronic devices is a great challenge, prompted by the need to find sustainable alternatives to the current materials, particularly in the field of dye-sensitized solar cells. Within the green alternatives, biopolymers extracted from biomass, such as polysaccharides and proteins,... [more]

High-energy consumption globally has raised questions about the low environmentally friendly and high-cost processes used until now for energy production. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) may support alternative more economically and environmentally favorable ways of bioenergy production based on their advantage of using waste. MFCs work as bio-electrochemical devices that consume organic substrates in order for the electrogenic bacteria and/or enzyme cultures to produce electricity and simultaneously lower the environmental hazardous value of waste such as COD. The utilization of organic waste as fuels in MFCs has opened a new research path for testing a variety of by-products from several industry sectors. This review presents several organic waste substrates that can be employed as fuels in MFCs for bioenergy generation and the effect of their usage on power density, COD (chemical oxygen demand) removal, and Coulombic efficiency enhancement. Moreover, a demonstration and comparison of th... [more]

Polyphenols that are abundant in various organic wastes can inhibit anaerobic degradation of these wastes. This study investigated the effect of the concentration of individual phenolic acids (p-OH benzoic, vanillic, ferulic, sinapic, syringic, and p-coumaric acids) and their mixture on the methane potential of distillery stillage. An increase in phenolic acid concentration adversely affected biogas production and composition, as well as the methane-production rate. The inhibition constants for methane production were 0.5−1.0 g/L of individual phenolic acids and 1.5 g/L of the mixture of these acids. At lower concentrations, the phenolic acids were utilized as a carbon source, but the process was impeded when their concentrations exceeded the threshold value, due to their negative effect on microbial growth. When distillery stillage was spiked with vanillic acid, two-phase methane production was observed. Spiking distillery stillage with vanillic, p-coumaric, syringic, or ferulic acids... [more]

Organic waste is generated worldwide, and its disposal and recycling are becoming a challenge. Due to its high carbon content, however, it may be converted into valuable products. Carbon neutrality is essential, and unstable international oil prices stress the increasing importance of biofuels significantly. Volatile fatty acids (VFA) derived from organic waste can be converted to microbial lipids by oleaginous yeast using it as a carbon source. When VFA is consumed by oleaginous yeast, the pH of the medium rises; hence, acidic agents have to be added to the medium to maintain the broth’s pH. In this study, we enhanced microbial lipid productivity by automatic fed-batch cultivation using VFA as an acidic agent, and the modified cultivation showed 48.9% and 69.0% higher biomass and lipid productivity than manual multi-fed culture. At a VFA concentration of 5 g/L and pH 7.0, a lipid yield of 0.25 g/g alongside lipid productivity of 0.11 g/L/h was obtained from an automatic fed-batch syst... [more]

Microbial oil production from industrial waste streams and biogenic resources, such as biomass hydrolysates, is emerging as a sustainable alternative to use of fossil and vegetable oils. However, the carbon sources of these substrates are typically diluted, leading to low product concentrations and, therefore, high fermentation and downstream processing costs. In this study, high-cell-density yeast oil production with a defined medium, which imitated the sugar composition of a diluted substrate, a typical microalgal biomass hydrolysate, is carried out on a 50 L scale using a membrane bioreactor (MBR) consisting of a microfiltration unit suited for industrial application. The process was run on a semi-continuous mode to reduce operational costs. Oleaginous yeast Cutaneotrichosporon oleaginosus was used as a biocatalyst and lipid production was induced by phosphate deficiency in the medium with a C/P ratio of 3515 g g−1. In this way, high cellular lipid contents of up to 76.5% (w/w) of d... [more]

The use of fossil energy sources has a negative impact on the economic and socio-political stability of specific regions and countries, causing environmental changes due to the emission of greenhouse gases. Moreover, the stocks of mineral energy are limited, causing the demand for new types and forms of energy. Biomass is a renewable energy source and represents an alternative to fossil energy sources. Microorganisms produce energy from the substrate and biomass, i.e., from substances in the microenvironment, to maintain their metabolism and life. However, specialized microorganisms also produce specific metabolites under almost abiotic circumstances that often do not have the immediate task of sustaining their own lives. This paper presents the action of biogenic and biogenic−thermogenic microorganisms, which produce methane, alcohols, lipids, triglycerides, and hydrogen, thus often creating renewable energy from waste biomass. Furthermore, some microorganisms acquire new or improved... [more]

The development of new high-power biofuel cells has been limited in the past by slow or indirect charge transfer. In this study, enzymatic biofuel cell (EBFC) systems were explored with different materials used to evaluate their applicability as redox mediators. Redox mediators of different natures have been selected for this research. Cytochrome c, Chlorophyll a, and supernatant of ultrasonically disrupted algae Chlorella vulgaris cells were examined as potential redox mediators. The effect of heparin on the EBFC was also evaluated under the same analytical conditions. The measurements of open circuit potential (OCP) and the evaluation of the current response in two modes of measurement were performed (i) during potential cycling in cyclic voltammetry measurements or (ii) at the constant potential value in chronoamperometry, and were applied for the evaluation of EBFC. Cytochrome c, Chlorophyll a, and the supernatant of ultrasonically disrupted algae Chlorella vulgaris cells-based red... [more]

Agricultural activities depend heavily on irrigation in arid and semi-arid climates, which are one of the most water-limited areas, reducing agricultural productivity. As the climate changes, the lack of precipitation is expected to aggravate in these areas, requiring careful management of water use. Subsurface water retention technology (SWRT) may hold promise as a management tool to save water use and improve crop drought resistance. In this context, the effect of SWRT on tomato yield, growth, physiology, and biochemical characteristics, as well as soil characteristics under two regimes of water (100% field capacity (FC) and 50% FC) in open field conditions, was investigated. The results here suggest that drought affected tomato performance. Nevertheless, SWRT application significantly increased tomato yield (38%), chlorophyll fluorescence (3%), gas exchange (39%), and chlorophyll total content (49%), as well as soil fertility characteristics, with significant increases in organic ma... [more]

Plant microbial fuel cells (P-MFCs) are sustainable and eco-friendly technologies, which use plant root exudates to directly nourish the electrochemically active bacteria (EABs) to generate sustainable electricity. However, their use in evaluating plant growth has been insufficiently studied. In this study, interconnection between plant growth and the production of bioelectricity was evaluated by using P-MFCs inoculated with 642.865 mL ≅ 643 mL of livestock’s urine such as cow urine, goat urine, and sheep urine. The greatest mean stem diameter of 0.52 ± 0.01 cm was found in P-MFC-3 inoculated with goat urine, while the P-MFC-2 treated with cow urine reached a higher average number of roots with a value of 86 ± 2.50 (95% improvement) (p < 0.05). Besides, P-MFC-4 presented greater height of 50.08 ± 0.67 cm. For polarization curve experiment a higher maximum power density of 132 ± 11.6 mW m−2 (931 mA m−2) was reached with cow urine; in turn, with regard to the long-term operation, the... [more]

Compared with the deeply buried marine gas hydrate deposits, gas hydrates in the shallow subsurface, close to and at the seafloor, have attracted more attention owing to their concentrated distribution, high saturation, and easy access. They accumulate at relatively shallow depths <100−120 m and occur as gas hydrate-bearing mounds (also known as hydrate outcrops, pingoes) at the seafloor derived from the growth of hydrates in the shallow subsurface or as pure hydrate chunks formed by gas leakage. This paper reviews and summarizes such gas hydrate systems globally from the perspective of gas sources, migration pathways, and accumulation processes. Here, we divided them into four categories: fault-chimney-controlled, diapir-fault-controlled, fault-controlled, and submarine mud volcano-controlled deposits. Gas chimneys originate immediately above the restricted regions, mostly affected by faults where high gas concentrations trigger elevated pore fluid pressures. Diapirism derives a de... [more]

The Chang 7 member of the Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation in the Ordos Basin is considered to hold the main source rocks for conventional and unconventional oil and gas. The lamination or lithology alteration in vertical and lateral directions, even over a short distance, is a common feature in lacustrine source rocks. The differences in the geochemical characteristics of black shales, dark mudstones and interbedded sandstones have been scarcely reported, and their influences on the petroleum generation potential and shale oil potential are not clear. To this end, 22 core samples were collected from the Lower and Middle Chang 7 (C7-3 and C7-2) members of the Triassic from well CYX in the Qingcheng area. By conducting a series of geochemical analyses including TOC, Rock-Eval pyrolysis yields, bitumen extraction and quantification, and the separation and quantification of saturates, aromatics, resins and asphaltenes, along with biomarker analyses, several results were found. Firstly, t... [more]

Energy plays a crucial role in the sustainable development of modern nations. Today, hydrogen is considered the most promising alternative fuel as it can be generated from clean and green sources. Moreover, it is an efficient energy carrier because hydrogen burning only generates water as a byproduct. Currently, it is generated from natural gas. However, it can be produced using other methods, i.e., physicochemical, thermal, and biological. The biological method is considered more environmentally friendly and pollution free. This paper aims to provide an updated review of biohydrogen production via photofermentation, dark fermentation, and microbial electrolysis cells using different waste materials as feedstocks. Besides, the role of nanotechnology in enhancing biohydrogen production is examined. Under anaerobic conditions, hydrogen is produced during the conversion of organic substrate into organic acids using fermentative bacteria and during the conversion of organic acids into hydr... [more]

The complexity of corrosion mechanisms in harsh offshore environments poses safety and integrity challenges to oil and gas operations. Exploring the unstable interactions and complex mechanisms required an advanced probabilistic model. The current study presents the development of a probabilistic approach for a consequence-based assessment of subsea pipelines exposed to complex corrosion mechanisms. The Bayesian Probabilistic Network (BPN) is applied to structurally learn the propagation and interactions among under-deposit corrosion and microbial corrosion for the failure state prediction of the asset. A two-step consequences analysis is inferred from the failure state to establish the failure impact on the environment, lives, and economic losses. The essence is to understand how the interactions between the under-deposit and microbial corrosion mechanisms’ nodes influence the likely number of spills on the environment. The associated cost of failure consequences is predicted using th... [more]

Microbial desalination cells (MDCs) are promising bioelectrochemical systems for desalination using the bacteria-generated electricity from the biodegradation of organic wastes contained in the wastewater. Instead of being a sustainable and eco-friendly desalination technology, the large-scale application of MDC was limited due to the high installation cost of the metal-catalyst-coated cathode electrode and the poor performance of the cathode in long-term operation due to catalyst fouling. Such cathodic limitations have hindered its large-scale application. The cathodic limitation has arisen mainly because of three losses, such as (1) Ohmic loss, (2) mass transfer loss, and (3) activation loss. The catalyst-assisted cathodic reduction reaction is an electrochemical surface phenomenon; thereby, the cathode’s surface charge transfer and thermodynamic efficiency are crucial for reaction kinetics. This review article aims to provide an overview of the MDC process, performance indicators, a... [more]

The world is predicted to face serious threats from the depletion of non-renewable energy resources, freshwater shortage, and food scarcity. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are innovative bio-electrochemical devices capable of directly converting chemical energy into electrical energy using microorganisms as a catalyst. This ability has been explored for generating electricity using wastewater as an energy source, while simultaneously treating wastewater. On the other hand, hydroponics is the cultivation of plants in water without soil. The goal of this study was to develop a novel integrated microbial fuel cell-hydroponic system (MFC-Hyp system) that possesses the ability to concurrently generate electricity while degrading organic pollutants (Chemical oxygen demand, COD) in wastewater, remove and recover nutrients (phosphorus, P and nitrogen, N) from the wastewater, and produce edible plants. The MFC-Hyp system developed in this study produced a power density of 250.7 mW/m2. The power de... [more]

A milk-processing plant was drafted as a distinctive staple industry amid the diverse field of industries. Dairy products such as yogurt, cheese, milk powder, etc., consume a huge amount of water not only for product processing, but also for sanitary purposes and for washing dairy-based industrial gear. Henceforth, the wastewater released after the above-mentioned operations comprises a greater concentration of nutrients, chemical oxygen demand, biochemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids, and organic and inorganic contents that can pose severe ecological issues if not managed effectively. The well-known processes such as coagulation−flocculation, membrane technologies, electrocoagulation, and other biological processes such as use of a sequencing batch reactor, upflow sludge anaerobic blanket reactor, etc., that are exploited for the treatment of dairy effluent are extremely energy-exhaustive and acquire huge costs in terms of fabrication and maintenance. In addition, these proc... [more]

This study investigated the effect of initially set anodic potentials (−0.3, −0.2, −0.1 and +0.1 V) on voltage production and microbial community in electroactive biofilm reactors (EBRs) treating synthetic and domestic wastewater (WW). In phase 1, EBRs were acclimated with different anodic potentials for synthetic and domestic WW. EBR (SE4) poised with +0.1 V showed the highest maximum power density (420 mW/m2) for synthetic WW, while EBR (DE3) poised with −0.1 V showed the highest maximum power density (235 mW/m2) for domestic WW. In phase 2, the EBRs were operated with a fixed external resistance (100 Ω for synthetic WW and 500 Ω for domestic WW) after the applied potentials were stopped. The EBRs showed slightly different voltage productions depending on the WW type and the initial anodic potential, but both EBRs applied with +0.1 V for synthetic (SE4) and domestic (DE4) WW showed the highest voltage production. Principal component analysis results based on denaturing gel gradient e... [more]

Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) produce mesons with both relatively low kinetic energy and with high kinetic energy. The kaons have up to 100 MeV of kinetic energy, thus a velocity of 0.55 c. Each laser pulse of >0.1 J of energy and length of 5 ns produces 1013 mesons. The operation of the meson generator is here demonstrated by measuring all decay times for mesons in the ns range after induction by a pulsed laser. These decay times are the unique fingerprints of the mesons, and they also produce the kinetic energy of the mesons created from their time-dilated decay. The charged pion decay time at rest from this generator is measured to be 25.92 ± 0.04 ns (standard fit error), in reasonable agreement with the tabulated results of 26.033 ns. A similar accuracy is found for the other mesons as for the charged kaons, with 96 MeV of kinetic energy, at 14.81 ± 0.05 ns. The same general behaviour is found with both deuterium and normal hydrogen forming the ultra-... [more]

Crude hydrolytic extracellular enzymes (CHEEs) generated by a mixed culture of microorganisms during fermentation have a high potential as economically feasible biocatalysts for the hydrolysis of complex organic wastes. This study investigates the feasibility of CHEEs as substitutes for commercial enzymes based on a series of anaerobic batch tests for CH4 production fed by pretreated waste activated sludge (WAS). The results showed that cellulase presented the highest CH4 yield of 99.1 mL·CH4/g·COD of WAS among the samples pretreated with single commercial enzymes, with a yield 34% higher than that of the control sample. A higher diversity of commercial enzymes used in the pretreatment led to higher CH4 production from WAS. The sample pretreated with a mixture of four commercial enzymes (amylase + protease + cellulase + lipase, APCL) presented a CH4 yield of 216.0 mL·CH4/g·COD of WAS. The WAS prepared with CHEEs resulted in a CH4 yield of 211.9 mL·CH4/g·COD of WAS, which is comparable... [more]

This study investigated thermal cracking and catalytic upgrading of waste from electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) plastics on a semi-batch reactor coupled to a heated catalyst fixed bed (2-stage vapor cracking). The catalyst used is a Si−Al ash obtained from commercial activated carbon pellets treated with concentrated NaOH solution and calcination. The purpose of the study was to characterize the waste stream through its thermogravimetry analysis and pyrolysis products, study the effect of temperature (350−500 °C) and catalyst quantity (0.0−7.5 %.wt) on yields of reaction products, physical chemical properties, and chemical composition of bio-oil in order to understand and evaluate production of fuels and chemical feedstock by recycling of WEEE plastic through catalytic upgrading. Time-fractioned samples were taken in determined reaction times (15, 30, 45, and 60 min) to study the evolution of cracking reactions during experiment runs through changes to chemical composition (GC/... [more]

Acetic acid is the primary by-product generated from ethanol production by Fusarium oxysporum using glucose or xylose as a substrate. Aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) is the critical enzyme in acetic acid metabolism. To decrease acetic acid yield in ethanol production, the 1509 bp DNA of aldh, encoding a 502 amino acid protein with a calculated molecular mass of 54.33 kDa and an isoelectric point of 6.21, was cloned from F. oxysporum. Sequence analysis confirmed that the screened proteins belonged to the ALDH family. A knockout vector, ∆aldh, containing positive (hygromycin resistance gene) and negative (thymidine kinase gene from the herpes simplex virus) selectable markers, was constructed. Ethanol production by the mutant (cs28pCAM-Pstal-∆aldh) in glucose- and xylose-containing media was 0.46 and 0.39 g/g, respectively, and these yields were 16.93% and 34.63% higher than those by the wild-type strain (0.393 and 0.289 g/g). Furthermore, the acetic acid yield of the mutant was 3.50 and 3... [more]

Production profiling technology is an important method for monitoring the dynamics of oil and gas reservoirs which can effectively improve the efficiency of oil recovery. Production profiling is a technique in which a test instrument is lowered from the tubing to the bottom of the well to measure flow, temperature, pressure, and density in a multi-layer section of a producing well. Normal production profiling process needs to stop production, operate complex, consume long time and high cost. Furthermore, the profile cannot be continuously monitored for a long time. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a production profiling interpretation method based on reservoir primitive microbial DNA sequencing. The microbial stratigraphic baseline with high-resolution features is obtained by sampling and DNA sequencing of produced fluid and cuttings from different wells. Specifically, the random forest algorithm is preferred and improved by comparing the accuracy, precision, recall, F... [more]