Stricter environmental policies, increased energy prices and depletion of resources are forcing industries to look for bio-based and low carbon footprint products. For industries, flax is interesting resource since it is light, strong, environmental friendly and renewable. From flax plant to fiber products involves biochemical and mechanical processes. Moreover, production and processing costs have to compete with other products, like petroleum based materials. This research focusses on sustainable process improvement from flax plant to fiber production. Flax retting is a biological process at which mainly pectin is removed. Without retting, the desired fibre remains attached to the wooden core of the flax stem. As a result, the flax fibres cannot be gained, or have a lows quality. After retting, the fibers are released from the wooden core. Furthermore, machines have been introduced in the flax production process, but the best quality fibers are still produced manually. Due to the high labor intensity the process is too expensive and the process needs to be economical optimized. Since the retting process determines all other downstream processes, retting is the first step to focus on. Lab-scale experiments were performed to investigate the retting process. Factors that were researched were low cost processing conditions like, temperature, pH, dew retting and water retting. The retting rate was low, around three weeks for complete retting. The best retting conditions were at 20°C with water and any addition of chemicals. The process could be shortened to two weeks by recycling the water phase. In a scale-up experiment, a rotating drum was used at the optimal conditions from the lab-experiment (20°C and water). First the flax did not mix with the water content in the rotating drum. The flax was too rigid and did not tumble. Therefore, bundles of flax plants were used. The inner core of the bundle seemed to be protected and the retting rate was less compared to the flax on the surface of the flax bundle. This implies that mechanical impact increased retting in the rotating drum, however heterogeneous retting should be avoided. To overcome the heterogeneous retting problem, a water column was used to improve heterogeneous retting. Retting was performed in a water column and mixing was accomplished by bubbling air. As a result of the mixing, the flax bundle was retted homogenously. And after drying, it was possible to separate the fibers from the wooden flax core. Retting with a bubble column can overcome this problem and seems to be a usable retting process step. Water samples of the lab-scale experiments, the rotating drum and the bubble column showed a chemical oxygen demand (COD) content up to 4 g/L. Overall, 1 kg Flax resulted in 40 g COD. This indicates the possibility to produce biogas that can be used for generating heat and electricity, to make the process sustainable. Around 50% of the weight consists of wooden shives. The shives can be used for pyrolysis and it was possible to produce around 30% coal and 20% oil. These compounds can be used as building blocks, but also to generate heat and electricity. Heat and electricity can be used for the flax processing. Shives were only dried for 1 day at 105°C and slow pyrolysis was used. This indicates that a higher yield can be expected at fast pyrolysis. Overall, the reported implicates that quality fiber production from flax plant can be a feasible, sustainable and a renewable production process. Feasibility of the process can be obtained by, (1) retting at low-cost process conditions of 20°C and using water without any addition of chemicals, (2) with increased flax retting rate by recycling water, (3) with increased flax retting rate by introducing mixing forces, and the ability to lower the energy consumption of the overall process, (4) producing biogas from the COD with anaerobic digestion and (5) producing pyrolysis oil and pyrolysis c
MULTIFILE
Muscle fiber-type specific expression of UCP3-protein is reported here for the firts time, using immunofluorescence microscopy
Background: Previous studies found that 40-60% of the sarcoidosis patients suffer from small fiber neuropathy (SFN), substantially affecting quality of life. SFN is difficult to diagnose, as a gold standard is still lacking. The need for an easily administered screening instrument to identify sarcoidosis-associated SFN symptoms led to the development of the SFN Screening List (SFNSL). The usefulness of any questionnaire in clinical management and research trials depends on its interpretability. Obtaining a clinically relevant change score on a questionnaire requires that the smallest detectable change (SDC) and minimal important difference (MID) are known. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the SDC and MID for the SFNSL in patients with sarcoidosis. Methods: Patients with neurosarcoidosis and/or sarcoidosis-associated SFN symptoms (N=138) included in the online Dutch Neurosarcoidosis Registry participated in a prospective, longitudinal study. Anchor-based and distribution-based methods were used to estimate the MID and SDC, respectively. Results: The SFNSL was completed both at baseline and at 6-months’ follow-up by 89/138 patients. A marginal ROC curve (0.6) indicated cut-off values of 3.5 points, with 73% sensitivity and 49% specificity for change. The SDC was 11.8 points. Conclusions: The MID on the SFNSL is 3.5 points for a clinically relevant change over a 6-month period. The MID can be used in the follow-up and management of SFN-associated symptoms in patients with sarcoidosis, though with some caution as the SDC was found to be higher.
The production of denim makes a significant contribution to the environmental impact of the textile industry. The use of mechanically recycled fibers is proven to lower this environmental impact. MUD jeans produce denim using a mixture of virgin and mechanically recycled fibers and has the goal to produce denim with 100% post-consumer textile by 2020. However, denim fabric with 100% mechanically recycled fibers has insufficient mechanical properties. The goal of this project is to investigate the possibilities to increase the content of recycled post-consumer textile fibers in denim products using innovative recycling process technologies.
Carboxylated cellulose is an important product on the market, and one of the most well-known examples is carboxymethylcellulose (CMC). However, CMC is prepared by modification of cellulose with the extremely hazardous compound monochloracetic acid. In this project, we want to make a carboxylated cellulose that is a functional equivalent for CMC using a greener process with renewable raw materials derived from levulinic acid. Processes to achieve cellulose with a low and a high carboxylation degree will be designed.
Electrohydrodynamic Atomization (EHDA), also known as Electrospray (ES), is a technology which uses strong electric fields to manipulate liquid atomization. Among many other areas, electrospray is currently used as an important tool for biomedical applications (droplet encapsulation), water technology (thermal desalination and metal recovery) and material sciences (nanofibers and nano spheres fabrication, metal recovery, selective membranes and batteries). A complete review about the particularities of this technology and its applications was recently published in a special edition of the Journal of Aerosol Sciences [1]. Even though EHDA is already applied in many different industrial processes, there are not many controlling tools commercially available which can be used to remotely operate the system as well as identify some spray characteristics, e.g. droplet size, operational mode, droplet production ratio. The AECTion project proposes the development of an innovative controlling system based on the electrospray current, signal processing & control and artificial intelligence to build a non-visual tool to control and characterize EHDA processes.
