This paper presents a comprehensive outline of designing diversified stimuli-responsive platforms, putting emphasis on the mechanistic variation of responsiveness. Representative examples and experimental results are given on the development of integrated multifunctional biosensors based on stimuli-responsive lipid bilayers for the (spatial and temporal) control of protein-surface interactions, an area that is expected to benefit largely diagnostic microarrays, biomaterials, regenerative medicine and drug delivery. The experimental results indicate that important limiting factors for the function and application of the stimuli-responsive platforms are the degree of change and the rate at which the change occurs. In many cases the understanding of the underlying mechanisms is still limited and needs to be extended, so that improved, rational design of sophisticated systems can be accessed.

Gas phase selective photocatalytic oxidation of cyclohexane was studied in a two dimensional fluidized bed reactor on MoOx catalysts supported on grafted TiO2/SiO2. The influence of sulphate and Mo loading was evaluated. Photocatalytic tests showed that benzene was the main reaction product formed during irradiation with together CO2 and cyclohexene as by products.Depending on the TiO2, Mo and sulphate loading, an enhancement of the activity and catalysts stability occurred during irradiation. MoOx/TiO2/SiO2 samples showed a higher photocatalytic activity with respect to MoOx/TiO2-Al2O3. This behaviour was attributed to the better transmission of UV light through SiO2 than through Al2O3 and the lower absorption of the radiation.

A rate-based model of CO2 capture process by MEA is built within Aspen Plus V8.0 software in this study. The model is built on the basis of an example model coming along with Aspen Plus V8.0, thermodynamic model of ENRTL-RK is adopted and both absorption and desorption columns are modelled by rate-based model. Important improvements have been achieved for its accuracy. To be specific, the washing section of the absorption column is strictly modelled and the error on mass balance of MEA is greatly reduced. In addition, the model is validated using the recently published pilot-scale experiment results of the absorption of CO2 by MEA and structured packing Sulzer of mellapak is employed for both absorption and desorption columns in the process. It predicts the experimental profiles of the temperature and the concentration of CO2 in the liquid phase with an accuracy of +/- 4%, and obviously much better than recently reported model of +/- 8 %.

Odour regulations worldwide highly regard odour complaints to indicate compliance to an Environmental Act regarding odour emissions. However in Malaysia, odour nuisance is rarely reported, and on the rare occasions complaints are made, they are usually passed straight to the mass media. Is the rarity of odour complaints in Malaysia an indicator of an odour-free environment or are there different reasons? This research is undertaken to understand the impact of prolonged odour to the residents and the initiatives taken to make known their plight. Questionnaires were given to students at a public institution in Penang, Malaysia, along with an odour descriptor classifying various smells into 8 major odorants. All respondents agreed there has been a lingering malodour ever since they enrolled at the hostels, with 63 % finding the odour to be quite annoying and smelling offensive (93 %). The nearby factories (100 %), farms (61 %) and sewerage systems (39 %) were perceived as major contributors to the malodour. The smell is usually evident during nighttime and is worst during windy conditions (89 %) and after rain (53 %). Although the students were apparently disturbed by the continuing odour and had access to various forms of communication facilities, none voiced a formal complaint about the issue. The lack of well-defined complaint channels, procedures and the mechanism of addressing the registered complaints were found to influence the respondents’ inclination to make complaints. Unlike other contaminants like COD, PM10, heavy metals etc., odour is very subjective in nature and becomes a nuisance only when cumulative annoyance on the people from repeated events of odour emissions are evident, hence the need for improvement in odour complaints management data for Malaysia are recommended.

The cultivation of two or more crops in association to each other is an ancient method of utilising agricultural area to get optimum crop productions. The increased cultivation of energy crops to fulfil energy requirements have led to the necessity of optimisation of bio productivity of the available land use, which should be carried out without compromising on the land quality and environmental conditions. Syn-Energy II is an Austrian national project, which focuses on the possibilities of synergetic expansion of agricultural biogas production. The field experiment results reveals that cultivation of intercrops for biogas production between the main crops enhances crop rotation yields, while it reduces erosion, greenhouse gas emissions and ground water pollution. Similarly synergetic calculations will be made for conservational soil cultivation and biological crop rotation systems. The project not only focuses on production of biogas for conventional use (heat and electricity production), but also biogas cleaning to natural gas quality (96 % methane content) which can be injected to the gas grid and its usage as an alternate fuel in the agricultural practice making a recycling loop (Niemetz and Kettl, 2012).The ecological assessment is carried out utilising Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) based methodology known as Sustainable Process Index (SPI) (Krotscheck and Narodoslawsky, 1996). A web based tool SPIonWeb (http://spionweb.tugraz.at/en/welcome) is used to calculate ecological footprint and dynamic modelling for biogas production scenarios, based on comprehensive energy and material flows from a variety of intercrop-systems. The process evaluation provides reliable information to figure out ecological hotspots for process optimisation (Kettl and Narodoslawsky, 2013).

It has been recently shown in the literature that specific strains of nnicroalgae are capable to simultaneously increase their growth rate and lipid content when cultured under suitable concentrations of iron. A mathematical model describing the effect of iron on all the complex phenomena affecting growth rate and lipid accumulation of C. Vulgaris is proposed in this work. Model results are successfully compared with experimental data which confirm the positive effect of growing iron concentrations on lipid productivity of C. Vulgaris.

Foam gypsum is a perspective material in construction. According to the requirements for the manufacturing process of foam gypsum, the initial moisture content should be very high. Drying of these products is obligatory requirement to obtain material with sufficient properties. It is possible to change the density of foam gypsum with hemp fibrous reinforcement technologically varying mechanical strength, thermal conductivity and sound absorption coefficients.In the constructions of buildings foam gypsum can be used as filler bounded by gypsum paperboard. In this work we aim to study the moisture transfer in multi-layered wall as usual in construction design. It is important to clarify the structural drying time and the factors that allow it to shorten. For this sample arrangement it is not possible to correct analytical description of drying process. A numerical method is used for calculation of moisture content.Drying process of foam gypsum coated with gypsum paperboard was researched with gravimetric and electrical methods. The validity of the numerical model was verified by comparison with experimental results.

Microalgae are considered one of the most promising feedstocks for biofuels; these microorganisms are also able to enhance the nutritional content of conventional food preparations, or can be converted into other fuel products, such as hydrogen, ethanol, long-chain hydrocarbons resembling crude oil, or biogas. Scendesmus dimorphus 1237 is an oleaginous eukaryotic microalga, able to produce and accumulate lipids up to a fraction around 43%. In condition of nitrogen starvation this percent grow sup to 50% of dry weight. Therefore this microalga is considered a promising feedstocks for biofuels. Arthrospira platensis is a cyanobacterium with a considerable potential as a source of high biologic value proteins ("superfood"), pigments (phycocyanin and beta-carotene) and poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) which have been shown to have therapeutic effects on humans. Anaerobic digestion liquid effluents feature the presence of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorous, which makes them interesting for a potential application in microalgal biomass production. Aim of this work is investigating the use of liquid anaerobic cattle manure digestate for the photosynthetic growth of these microalgae.

CO2-mixture Properties for Pipeline Transportation in the CCS Process Michela Mazzoccoli, Giorgia De Guido, Barbara Bosio, Elisabetta Arato, Laura A. Pellegrini* a Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Chimica e Ambientale, Universita di Genova, Via Opera Pia 15, 16145 Genova, Italy b Dipartimento di Chimica, Materiali e Ingegneria Chimica “G. Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, I-20133 Milano, Italy laura.pellegrini@polimi.it

Our activity is focused on the study of the kinetic of the Pt-Ba/gamma-Al2O3 catalyst used in the Lean-NOx-Traps to store NOx as adsorbed nitrites and nitrates, and to reduce them to nitrogen. Kinetically relevant data have been collected by the Laboratoire Catalyse et Spectrochimie (ENSICAEN, France), using a spectroscopic reactor-cell, and on the basis of the collected data, a kinetic model has been developed, using as experimental responses the dynamic evolution of both the gas phase and the adsorbed species. In this work a reactive CFD-based modeling approach is proposed for the first time, in order to keep into account the actual reactor-cell geometry (modeled as ideal PFR for the estimate of the kinetic parameters), and to obtain further information of the space-time evolution of the reactive system. Consequently, a new simulation tool, named CATalytic Post Processor, is here presented. CAT-PP is able to acquire the flow/velocity field obtained by the commercial code ANSYS Fluent and to solve the transport equations containing the kinetic scheme.