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    Wastewater treatment for removal of recalcitrant compounds: A hybrid process for decolorization and biodegradation of dyes
    (2011-08-01)
    Palma, Carolyn
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    Vásquez, Carlos
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    Contreras, Elsa
    While conventional wastewater treatments for urban effluents are fairly routine and have proved highly effective, industrial wastewater requires more complex and specific treatments. This paper provides a technological strategy for removal of recalcitrant contaminants based on a hybrid treatment system. The model effluent containing a binary mixture of synthetic dyes is treated by a combination of a preliminary physicochemical stage followed by a biological stage based on ligninolytic enzymes produced by Phanerochaete chrysosporium. This proposal includes biosorption onto peat as pretreatment, which decreases the volume and concentration to be treated in the biological reactor, thereby obtaining a completely decolorized effluent. The treated wastewater can therefore be reused in the dyeing baths with the consequent saving of water resources.
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    Biological Properties and Absolute Configuration of Flavanones From Calceolaria thyrsiflora Graham
    (2020-07-28)
    Valdés, Ernesto
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    Vásquez-Martínez, Yesseny
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    Mascayano, Carolina
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    Torrent, Claudia
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    Cabezas, Francisco
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    Mejias, Sophia
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    Montoya, Margarita
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    Cortez-San Martín, Marcelo
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    Muñoz, Marcelo A.
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    Joseph-Nathan, Pedro
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    Taborga, Lautaro
    Flavanones (-)-(2S)-5,4'-dihydroxy-7-methoxyflavanone (1) and (-)-(2S)-5,3',4'-trihydroxy-7-methoxyflavanone (2) were isolated from the extracts of Calceolaria thyrsiflora Graham, an endemic perennial small shrub growing in the central zone of Chile. The absolute configuration of these compounds was resolved by optical rotation experiments and in silico calculations. Three analogs (3, 4, and 5) were synthesized to do structure-activity relationships with the biological assays studied. Biological tests revealed that only flavanone 2 exhibited a moderate inhibitory activity against the methicillin-resistant strain S. aureus MRSA 97-77 (MIC value of 50 µg/ml). In addition, flavanone 2 showed a potent, selective, and competitive inhibition of 5-hLOX, which supports the traditional use of this plant as an anti-inflammatory in diseases of the respiratory tract. Also, 2 exhibited cytotoxic and selective effects against B16-F10 (8.07 ± 1.61 µM) but 4.6- and 17-fold lesser activity than etoposide and taxol.
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    Preliminary antiproliferative evaluation of natural, synthetic benzaldehydes and benzyl alcohols
    (2013-01-01)
    Madrid, Alejandro
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    Catalán, Karen
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    Montenegro, Iván
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    Mellado, Marco
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    Werner, Enrique
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    Cuellar, Mauricio
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    Villena, Joan
    Vanillin, o-vanillin, natural and synthetic benzaldehydes and benzyl alcohols were assessed for antiproliferative effects using different human cell lines. Benzyl alcohols were synthesized from benzaldehydes reduced with NaBH4 in methanol solution. A new method for deprotection of ether compounds with TiCl4 solution was achieved with better performance, than previously reported. Twenty four compounds were tested. The in vitro growth inhibition assay was based on sulphorhodamine dye to quantify cell viability. Catechol 9 derived from piperonal as well as compounds 4 and 12 showed higher cytotoxicity on breast and prostate cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231 and PC-3 respectively). o-Vanillin 5 has the highest cytotoxicity for all cell lines. IC50 values of 35.40 ± 4.2 μM Breast MDA-MB231; 47.10 ± 3.8 μM Prostate PC-3; 72.50 + 5.4 μM Prostate DU-145; 85.10 + 6.5 μM and Colon HT-29, were obtained without toxicity towards dermal human fibroblast (DHF cells).
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    Distributed stochastic optimization of a process plant start-up
    (2014-01-01)
    Martí, R.
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    Navia, D.
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    Sarabia, D.
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    De Prada, C.
    This paper presents a decentralized solution to the stochastic optimization problems that appear when uncertainty is considered explicitly using a set of scenarios in model based control and optimization. In particular, the paper deals with two-stage optimization problems, where the first-stage solution has to fulfil the constraints for all multiple scenarios simultaneously. To deal with the large size of the problem, a reformulation has been performed solving the optimization in parallel for as many deterministic problems as scenarios are, and coordinating their solutions in order to force a common decision for all of them, using a price-driven methodology followed by a sensitivity-based update. The methodology is illustrated with an example involving the optimal start-up of a hydrodesulphurization plant.
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    Analysis of partial discharges in electrical tree growth under very low frequency (vlf) excitation through pulse sequence and nonlinear time series analysis
    (2020-01-01)
    Donoso, Pablo
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    Orellana, Luis
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    Electrical treeing is the main degradation mechanism in high voltage polymeric insulation, that leads to power system plant failure and the loss of electricity supply. Electrical trees grow under partial discharge (PD) activity, which can be measured and analyzed to understand and characterize electrical tree growth. In this work, PD measurements were analyzed for electrical trees grown in epoxy resin needle-plane samples under very low frequency (VLF, 0.1 Hz) voltage excitation. VLF is interesting as it is used for testing power cables and other high capacitance insulation loads. However, more experience and new methods are needed for PD interpretation. PDs were studied using two tools: pulse sequence analysis (PSA) and nonlinear time series analysis (NLTSA) from dynamic system theory. PSA was treated here as a particular case of NLTSA since their constructions are similar in their mathematical treatment. The experimental results showed that electrical trees grown at VLF had branch-type structure and times to breakdown about fifty times larger than samples aged at industrial frequency. PSA plots were compared with 2D projections of state-space trajectories that represent the dynamics of the nonlinear system (NLTSA approach). In terms of graphical representation, NLTSA 2D projections generated more clusters than the PSA plots, thus, it was interpreted that NLTSA revealed more details about the nonlinear dynamic system associated with electrical tree growth. On the other hand, using the NLTSA approach, the correlation dimension was estimated to characterize the electrical tree growth. The results showed a different evolution obtained for VLF excitation compared to the results reported for test samples aged at industrial frequency in other studies.