Removal of high organic loads from winery wastewater by aquatic plants

Laboratory- and field-scale purification tests of raw and diluted winery wastewater (WWW) were carried out using aquatic plants at high organic loads. The laboratory tests were performed using artificial light at 1800 to 1900 lux. The objective of the current study was to define the potential of floating and emergent aquatic macrophytes and the microorganisms attached to their roots, to reduce high organic loads that characterize WWW, thereby providing, for these effluents, an effective treatment and management system. These microorganisms are believed to have a major role in the treatment process. In this context, the potential of floating and emergent macrophytes to improve the water quality of raw compared with diluted WWW was evaluated. In raw WWW (chemical oxygen demand [COD] 5.6 g/L),growth inhibition of both water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and water pennywort (Hydrocotyle umbellata) was observed. A 1:1 dilution of WWW with fresh (tap) water facilitated growth of these plants. At this dilution level, growth of pennywort was limited, while that of water hyacinth was robust. In terms of reductions in biochemical oxygen demand, COD, and total suspended solids, both water hyacinth and pennywort performed better in diluted compared with raw WWW. At 1:1 and 1:3 dilution, 95.9 to 97% of the COD was removed after 23 days, in the presence of Hydrocotyle and Eichhornia plants and aeration. The capacity of new emergent plants to remove high organic loads from WWW, at enhanced kinetics, was demonstrated. This unique property was tested and compared with the role of the gravel media that support growth of the high-capacity emergent plants. In the presence of reed and salt marsh plants, 83 to 99% of the COD was removed within a period of 24 to 29 days, at 1.5:1 dilution. The new emergent plants proved to be effective, even at record high levels of COD. At an initial level of 16,460 mg/L, the COD was brought down to 2870 mg/L after 24 days (82.6% removal), while 12 230 mg/L was lowered to 106 mg/L, giving 99.1% removal from the highly contaminated WWW. These results indicate a significant extension of the range of applicability of emergent plants for the treatment of raw and diluted WWW. In this context, daily removal rates as high as 2000 mg/L in the first treatment days, and an average of over 550 mg/L per day in 24 days of treatment, were recorded. The indoor experiments were conducted without proper acclimatization of the plants to high-strength WWW. This might have affected the plants' health in case, with acclimatization, they might have behaved differently.

Development and calibration of a Thomson parabola with microchannel plate for the detection of laser-accelerated MeV ions

This article reports on the development and application of a Thomson parabola (TP) equipped with a (90x70) mm(2) microchannel-plate (MCP) for the analysis of laser-accelerated ions, produced by a high-energy, high-intensity laser system. The MCP allows an online measurement of the produced ions in every single laser shot. An electromagnet instead of permanent magnets is used that allows the tuning of the magnetic field to adapt the field strength to the analyzed ion species and energy. We describe recent experiments at the 100 TW laser facility at the Laboratoire d'Utilization des Lasers Intenses (LULI) in Palaiseau, France, where we have observed multiple ion species and charge states with ions accelerated up to 5 MeV/u (O(+6)), emitted from the rear surface of a laser-irradiated 50 microm Au foil. Within the experiment the TP was calibrated for protons and for the first time conversion efficiencies of MeV protons (2-13 MeV) to primary electrons (electrons immediately generated by an ion impact onto a surface) in the MCP are presented.

Controlled transport and focusing of laser-accelerated protons with miniature magnetic devices

This Letter demonstrates the transporting and focusing of laser-accelerated 14 MeV protons by permanent magnet miniature quadrupole lenses providing field gradients of up to 500 T/m. The approach is highly reproducible and predictable, leading to a focal spot of (286 x 173) microm full width at half maximum 50 cm behind the source. It decouples the relativistic laser-proton acceleration from the beam transport, paving the way to optimize both separately. The collimation and the subsequent energy selection obtained are perfectly applicable for upcoming high-energy, high-repetition rate laser systems.

Cell proliferation measurement in cecum and colon of rats using scanned images and fully automated image analysis: Validation of method

The purpose of this study was to establish and validate fully automatic measurement of cell proliferation on scanned images of rat cecum and colon. Tissue slides were taken from a 4-week mechanistic study and processed for BrdU immunohistochemistry. Four sections of the cecum and colon per slide were scanned with the Zeiss MIRAX SCAN and transferred to the Definiens eCognition Analyst LS5.0 system for evaluation. Two rule sets for automatic counting of BrdU-positive and negative nuclei from mucosal cells on the image tiles were created by Definiens, one for cecum, one for colon. For validation, manual counting of 16 randomly selected tiles from five different slides of colon and cecum was performed. Negative and positive cell nuclei were counted in each image tile by four different people. Comparison of results from manual counting with the automatic counting showed that the sum as well as single tile data and labeling index (LI) from automatic counting were within the range of manual counting results +/-10%. Automatic counting included only cell nuclei within the mucosa whereas muscularis and lymphoid tissue as well as wrinkles from tissue preparation were excluded. In addition, two data sets from automatic counting of the same image tile were compared: (1) data where image tiles with incorrect detection of mucosa were excluded from further calculation of LI and area, and (2) data where no visual check was performed and all measurements were included. Results were very similar for both data sets. The necessity of the manual correction may therefore be doubted.

The SERS and TERS effects obtained by gold droplets on top of Si nanowires

We show that hemispherical gold droplets on top of silicon nanowires when grown by the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism, can produce a significant enhancement of Raman scattered signals. Signal enhancement for a few or even just single gold droplets is demonstrated by analyzing the enhanced Raman signature of malachite green molecules. For this experiment, trenches (approximately 800 nm wide) were etched in a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer along <110> crystallographic directions that constitute sidewalls ({110} surfaces) suitable for the growth of silicon nanowires in <111> directions with the intention that the gold droplets on the silicon nanowires can meet somewhere in the trench when growth time is carefully selected. Another way to realize gold nanostructures in close vicinity is to attach a silicon nanowire with a gold droplet onto an atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip and to bring this tip toward another gold-coated AFM tip where malachite green molecules were deposited prior to the measurements. In both experiments, signal enhancement of characteristic Raman bands of malachite green molecules was observed. This indicates that silicon nanowires with gold droplets atop can act as efficient probes for tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS). In our article, we show that a nanowire TERS probe can be fabricated by welding nanowires with gold droplets to AFM tips in a scanning electron microscope (SEM). TERS tips made from nanowires could improve the spatial resolution of Raman spectroscopy so that measurements on the nanometer scale are possible.