Pyrochemical technology using high-temperature molten salts and molten metal media presents a potential interest for an overall separation and transmutation strategy for long-lived radionuclides. Within the frame of the two French acts on radioactive waste management, a pyrochemical R&D program was launched at the CEA Marcoule in the late 90's. The second step is the actinides back-extraction, which consists in a liquid/liquid oxidative stripping of the An from aluminium matrix into molten chloride media. The DOS process has been successfully demonstrated for treatment of oxide type fuels within the last years: the core of the process has been already assessed and the studies have shown high selectivity and a quantitative recovery of actinides.Within the framework of the SACSESS European research program, the pyrochemical activities focused on applications of the DOS process to reprocess CERCER transmutation targets. These particular type of fuels consist of a mixture of minor actinides (MA) oxides diluted in an inert (oxide MgO) matrices. The behaviour of matrices material was first investigated regarding the solubility in the fluoride salt, starting from both oxide powders or sintered pellets. Further investigations focused on the reductive extraction behaviour of Mg in metallic Al. The impact of Mg on the efficiency of An reductive extraction was also studied using uranium simulating the behaviour of MA oxides.(C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Two different expression vectors were constructed to investigate two signal peptides on secretion of Geobacillus thermoleovorans IT-08 α-L-arabinofuranosidase (AbfA) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. They were designed to direct the secretion of AbfA by the aid of one of the following signal peptides, the αF signal peptide in the plasmid YEpFLAG1-Af and HM-1 signal peptide in the plasmid pYHM1-Af. Although some successful results have been reported in proteins secretion with αF leader sequence, in this research no α-L-arabinofuranosidase activity could be observed in recombinants S. cerevisiae YEpFLAG1-Af. The HM-1 leader sequence, originated from Hansenula mrakii IFO 0895 killer toxin, showed the capability to AbfA secretion.
Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) has infected approximately 2-3% (130-170 million) of the world's population. No vaccine is available to prevent HCV infection. Investigation of anti-HCV agent is thus deemed necessary. Various plants have been explored for their anti-HCV activity. A. serratus is a member of Sapindaceae family, which fruit and seed were traditionally used as insecticide. Anti-HCV activity tested on A.serratus leaves extract has been done. The result showed that leaves extract exhibited anti-HCV with IC50 value of 14.9μg/ml and 9.8μg/ml against HCV J6/JFH1 and JFH1a, respectively. The cytotoxicity assay results showed that A.serratus leaves extract was not toxic and has CC50 >100μg/ml. Mode of action experiment results suggested that A.serratus extract inhibited HCV at the post-entry step. Further fractionation of leaves extract by open column chromatography resulted in 4 fractions. Only Fraction 1 (AP-5F.1) exhibited anti-HCV with IC50 value of 1.2μg/ml against HCV JFH1a. Separation of AP-5F.1 by open column chromatography resulted in 15 fractions. Fraction number 13 (AP-5F.1.13) exhibited anti-HCV with IC50 value of 0.43μg/ml against HCV JFH1a. Separation of AP-5F.1.13 by semi preparative-HPLC resulted in isolate identified by TLC and LC-MS method as chlorophyll derivate. There was a possibility that chlorophyll derivate has participated in performing the anti-HCV activity of fractions and extract besides the other compounds contained. In this study, we concluded that A. serratus leaves extract, AP-5F.1, and AP-5F.1.13 exhibited anti-HCV activity against JFH1a virus.
Corrosion of metals within magnetic field (MF) had been actively studied for better understanding of the corrosion mechanism when the magnetic sources are presented. However, findings regarding the effect of MF on metals are inconclusive, and there is a lack of studies of MF interaction with various corrosion control techniques, such as corrosion inhibitor. In this paper, the effect of MF on the corrosion of copper in 0.5M hydrochloric acid (HCl) solution, with or without corrosion inhibitor were studied. Benzotriazole (BTA), a common copper inhibitor, was chosen as the inhibitor for this study. To determine the effect of MF, a MF of 13 mT, generated using a pair of permanent neodymium magnet, was applied during weight loss and electrochemical tests. The results showed that corrosion inhibition efficiency of BTA decreased when it is under an applied MF. A decrease from 47% to 60% in inhibition efficiency had been observed for all samples in an applied MF. By using Tafel extrapolation technique on the polarization curves, it revealed that MF had increased the corrosion current of copper in HCl, causing a decrease in the inhibition efficiency.
In this work, we present the effects of mixing sequence of sodium tungstate and nitric acid, as well as the aging duration on the formation of tungsten oxide by sol-gel method. Increase of the aging duration allows the formation of uniform platelet structure where no structure could be detected at 1 aging day while uniform platelet structure could be detected at 30 days. Hydrated tungsten oxide platelets of 1-1.θ зm could be formed by mixing sodium tungstate into nitric acid (sample labeled as W-A) which could be reduced significantly in size to 200-600nm by changing the mixing sequence to drop nitric acid into sodium tungstate (sample labeled as A-W). Crystalline hydrated tungsten oxides were obtained for both samples where W-A sample shows better degree of crystallinity. Room temperature hydrogen gas sensing property was successfully detected by both samples where A-W sample demonstrates ∼2.5 times higher sensor response to hydrogen gas compared to W-A sample.
