The Misunderstood Gene by Michel Morange - قسمت اول

کتاب The Misunderstood Gene را امروز از کتابخونه دانشگاه امانت گرفتم.

نویسندش یه دانشمند فرانسویه به نام  Michel Morange

کتاب جالبیه وMichel Morange سعی داره یه دیدگاه جدیدی را به خواننده در خصوص زیست شناسی ملکولی القاء کنه.

نویسنده در این کتاب تصور عمومی را درخصوص ژنها به چالش می کشونه و ادعا می کنه این تصور از ژنها منسوخ و کهنه شده.

در ادامه بیشتر می نویسم.

بدررود

Calculation of Heat Losses from a system

when you are working in the field of biotechnology you need to deal with several systems such as fementor,distillation tower,incubator,autoclave ,and so on. 

in this regard i towering figure which always warn you is the amount of energy fed to system and the energy coming out of your system as well. and here you may take care of the beneficiary of the energy.

In this post the i want to go though this hypothesis that says: the input heat to a system has always a certain amount of losses .And meanwhile i will generally describe how the heat loss amount from a system can be calculated.  

So consider a distillation tower .how to determine the heat losses from a distillation tower?  

 A distillation tower (Distillation column) is a collection of equipment which provides us a high concentration of liquid from a low concentration liquid by heating the liquid mixture .in the other word, Distillation is the procedure of separating a certain liquids from a liquid mixture base of differences in their tendency to vaporize (Volatility).in the distillation process we have not any chemical reaction and actually the separation of liquids will be done physically.  

In a typical distillation tower we have:

A tank: it is containing the mixture which is going to be separated (in our case containing Ethanol and water

Fractionating column: comprising platforms, known as trays, which refluxing distillate inside the column, and runs back down into the liquid below. 

Boiler: the boiler is producing steam this steam provides the necessary heat to boil the liquid   . In this case the steam coming from boiler comes through a hose, and divides to two paths:

One line of the Steam heats the ethanol coming from tank

another line of steam heats the reflux liquid mixture draining from fractionating column. The role of this steam is like a motor for distillation tower

A temperature menu: that shows the temperature of different parts of distillation tower 

. 

Control panel: to switch the tower On and shut it down and also adjust the effective elements.

Valves, Pumps, hoses, pipes, Pressure and temperature gauges. 

In this system the low concentration ethanol comes from the tank and get warm by  

steam which is produced by boiler .but we should note that the steam has no direct contact with ethanol and only by heat conduction through the glass the heat transfer will be done.

The liquid ethanol will evaporate and starts to go up the column .we have 10 trays in 

 the column. Vapour goes up and condensed ethanol (liquid) steps down (drop down). Here we have exchange between liquid phases and vapour phase. Ethanol concentration in the vapour is higher in the higher trays.

On the top of the column there is a condenser  that condenses the ethanol that is now pure.  

There are five places which you should take the samples:  

Distillate D  

Feed  F  

Waste W  

Steam From Boiler  

Cooling Water    

In order to calculate the heat loss, you should use the Heat Balance formula: 

IN=OUT 

And it means that the heat entered to the system should be equal to the heat coming out of the system.  

Now we should start to calculate the Energy flow for each five samples. 

after defining the energy flow for each sample you should put them in the main energy balance equation then you can obtain the energy which you have lost from your system

New requirement shakes EU's Renewable Energy Directive

New requirement shakes EU's Renewable Energy Directive

18th September, 2008

MEPs on the industry committee of the European Parliament have voted to keep a proposed target for all road transport to include 10% of renewable fuels by 2020, as outlined in the Renewable Energy Directive.

However, the target has been given a new requirement for 40% of those renewable fuels to come from either second generation biofuels, electricity or hydrogen.

MEPs also voted to support an amendment to the proposed Renewable Energy Directive to include an interim target of 5% renewable fuels within road transport by 2015.

For this interim target, 20% of the renewable fuels, 1% of total fuels, would have to come from second generation biofuels, electricity or hydrogen.

'If this decision is confirmed in the forthcoming plenary vote, it will strongly affect the credibility of the European Parliament, especially with regard to past commitments,' Raffaello Garofalo, secretary general of the European Biodiesel Board (EBB), comments. 'It is sad that legislators have been swayed by superficial arguments linking biofuels to food price rises.'

The Board goes on to point out the problems with other types of renewable energy: 'Electric car batteries will be charged in private places where the electricity delivered is only one and very predominantly of fossil origin, making it impossible to segregate and choose to run on renewable,' Garofalo adds.

The European Bioethanol Fuel Association (eBio) also criticises the move. 'The amendments adopted by the European Parliament's Industry Committee on biofuels are counterproductive in reducing our dependency on imported and polluting fossil fuels.'

The Parliament puts at risk over €5 billion invested in EU biofuel production capacity and all the employment linked to it, the association says

عذر خواهی بابت به روز نکردن وبلاگ

چند روزیه که به دلیل مسافرتم نتونستم وبلاگ را به روز کنم.

و حالا هم دارم با مکافات فارسی تایپ میکنم چون کیبوردم سوئدیه .

فعلا ....

Better living through chemurgy

fforts to replace oil-based chemicals with renewable alternatives are taking off

Illustration by David Simonds

FORTY years ago Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate” was given a famous piece of career advice: “Just one word…plastics.” It was appropriate at the time, given that the 1960s were a golden age of petrochemical innovation. Oil was cheap and seemed limitless. Since then, scientists have kept on coming up with wondrous new products made from petroleum that helped to ensure, in the words of one corporate slogan, better living through chemistry. Even so, someone offering advice to today’s promising graduates might invoke a different, uglier word: chemurgy.

This term, coined in the 1930s, refers to a branch of applied chemistry that turns agricultural feedstocks into industrial and consumer products. It had several successes early in the 20th century. Cellulose was used to make everything from paint brushes to the film on which motion pictures were captured. George Washington Carver, an American scientist, developed hundreds of ways to convert peanuts, sweet potatoes and other crops into glue, soaps, paints, dyes and other industrial products. In the 1930s Henry Ford started using parts made from agricultural materials, and even built an all-soy car. But the outbreak of the second world war and the shift to wartime production halted his experiment. After the war, low oil prices and breakthroughs in petrochemical technologies ensured the dominance of petroleum-based plastics and chemicals.

But now chemurgy is back with a vengeance, in the shape of modern industrial biotechnology. Advances in bioengineering, environmental worries, high oil prices and new ways to improve the performance of oil-based products using biotechnology have led to a revival of interest in using agricultural feedstocks to make plastics, paints, textile fibres and other industrial products that now come from oil.

This form of biotechnology has not attracted as much attention as biotech drugs, genetically modified organisms or biofuels, but it has been quietly growing for years. BASF, a German chemical giant, estimates that bio-based products account for some €300m ($470m) of sales in such things as “chiral intermediates” (which give the kick to its pesticides). The sale of industrial enzymes by Novozymes, a Danish firm, brings in over €950m a year, about a third of it from enzymes for improving laundry detergents. Jens Riese of McKinsey, a consultancy, reckons industrial biotech’s global sales will soar to $100 billion by 2011—by which time sales of biofuels will have reached only $72 billion.

Will this boom really prove to be more sustainable than the first, ill-fated blossoming of chemurgy? One potential problem is that oil-based polymers are very good at what they do. Early bioplastics melted too easily, or proved unable to keep soft drinks fizzy when they were made into bottles. Pat Gruber, a green-chemistry guru who helped start NatureWorks (a pioneering biopolymers firm) says customers are sometimes too risk-averse to retrain staff or modify equipment to accept a new biopolymer—even if it is cheaper or better.

It seems likely that oil-based products will be around for a long time in some applications. But the big advances in oil-based polymers happened decades ago, whereas the number of patents granted for industrial biotechnology now exceeds 20,000 per year. Such is the pace of innovation, says Tjerk de Ruiter, chief executive of Genencor, a industrial-biotech firm that is now a division of Denmark’s Danisco, that processes that once took five years now take just one. And Steen Riisgaard, the boss of Novozymes, insists that new technologies can indeed push old ones out of the way, provided they are clearly superior (and not just greener). Brewers raced to adopt Novozymes’ novel enzymes, for example, in order to cash in on the Atkins Diet craze with “low carb” beers.

A second potential obstacle is that incumbent companies will quash the fledgling new technologies. But concern about oil’s reliability as a feedstock means that even oil-dependent incumbents are interested in alternatives. Oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and BP see novel bioproducts not as threats but as useful tools for blending into, and possibly extending, remaining oil reserves. And chemicals giants such as Dow and DuPont are also big fans of novel industrial biotechnologies. Chad Holliday, DuPont’s boss, is sure that Sorona, his firm’s new biofibre, will be a multi-billion dollar product and “the next nylon”. DuPont expects its sales of industrial biotechnology products to grow by 16-18% a year, to reach $1 billion by 2012.

Perhaps the biggest worry is that today’s industrial-biotech boom is an artefact of the soaring price of oil. If the oil price plunged and stayed low, the boom would surely turn to bust. Short of outright collapse, however, even a sharp price drop need not burst the biotech bubble. Mr Riese has scrutinised the economics of sugar and oil—the chief rival feedstocks—and concludes that the “bio-route” will be cheaper even at an oil price of $50-60 a barrel. Brent Erickson of BIO, an industry lobby, argues that “this was happening long before the oil-price spike—$100 oil is just gravy.” Industry bosses agree, noting that the flurry of projects now approaching commercial use were deemed viable and initiated a few years ago, when the oil price was closer to $40 a barrel.

For proof that industrial biotech is ready for the big time, look to Brazil. The country already has a large and efficient industry producing ethanol fuel from sugar cane. Now rival consortia are rushing to build plants to turn sugar cane into bioethylene. This is striking. Unlike many other industrial biotech efforts which target niche markets, this is an assault on the $114 billion market for ethylene, the most widely produced organic compound of all.

Erin O’Driscoll of Dow, a chemical giant now investing in Brazilian bioethylene, says the firm is confident the technology is ready for commercialisation. The chief reason for such optimism is that industrial biotechnology is better and cheaper than it was back in the heyday of chemurgy. Dow has even come up with a material made from soyabean oil that it plans to sell to carmakers to replace oil-based foam. Ford and his friend Carver would be proud.

Economist.com

نانو نقره چیست؟

نانو نقره چیست؟

تصمیم گرفتم در خصوص نانو نقره  بیشتر بنویسم. نانوسیلور یک دستاورد شگرف علمی از نانوتکنولوژی است که در عرصه های مختلف پرشکی، صنایع مختلف مثل کشاورزی، دامپروری، بسته بندی، لوازم خانگی، آرایشی و بهداشتی و نظامی کاربرد دارد. این فناوری از طریق کنترل فعالیت عوامل بیماری زا در خدمت بشر می باشد. از این رو به لحاظ بازدهی بالا علمی بودن، افزایش ظرفیت ها و مقرون به صرفه بودن از لحاظ اقتصادی و سازگاری با محیط زیست و ماندگاری بسیار زیاد در مقابله با دیگر روشهای بهبود فراوری و تولید، ارجحیت دارد. با توجه به آسیب ها، تلفات و خسارات و .. که میکروارگانیسم ها و ویروس ها به صنایع مختلف و محیط زیست وارد می سازند و همچنین هزینه های هنگفتی که جهت پیشگیری و بهبود شرایط ایجاد شده صرف میگردد. از نانوسیلور به عنوان یک پیشگیرانه خسارت، تلفات و یک جایگزین مناسب برای بسیاری از مواد ضدعفونی کننده، مکمل صنعتی موثر و همچنین یک منبع درآمد بزرگ از طریق صرفه جویی استفاده نمود. نقره در ابعاد بزرگتر فلزی با خاصیت واکنش دهی کم میباشد ولی زمانیکه به ابعاد کوچکتر در حد نانومتر تبدیل می شود خاصیت میکروب کشی آن بیش از 99% افزایش می یابد زیرا به دلیل اینکه اندازه کمی دارند سطح تماس بیشتری با فضای بیرون داشته و تاثیر بیشتری بر محیط می گذارند. تا حدی که می توان از آن جهت بهبود جراحات و عفونتها استفاده کرد. نقره در ابعاد نانو بر متابولیسم، تنفس و تولید مثل میکروارگانیسم ها اثر میگذارد. تاکنون بیش از 650 نوع باکتری شناخته شده را از بین برده است. نانوسیلور به دو صورت پودر (کامپوزیت) و مایع (کلوئید) تولید می شود. در فناوری نانوسیلوریونهای نقره به صورت کلوئیدی در محلولی به حالت سوسپانسیون قرار دارند که خاصیت آنتی باکتریال، آنتی فونگاس(ضدقارچ)، آنتی ویروس دارند. در تحقیقات بدست آمده کمبود نقره از حد مشخصی در بدن بر روی بافت ها تاثیر منفی گذاشته و باعث ایجاد سلولهای سرطانی میشود. در طی آزمایشات انجام شده جهت درمان بسیاری از بیماریها با نانوسیلور نتایج مثبت و خوبی بدست آمده است. از نانوسیلور حتی به عنوان داروی خوراکی جهت درمان هپاتیت، ایدز نوع 1، و جلوگیری از سارس و آنفولانزای مرغی و … استفاده میگردد. محلول خوراکی دارویی نانو ذرات نقره باید از 80% نقره عادی (فلز) و 20%  یون نقره تشکیل شود زیرا یونها در معده با اسید هیدروکلریک واکنش داده و کلرید نقره دست می شود که خاصیت خود را از دست می دهد. برای مصرف این دارو به صورت خوراکی بهتر است از محلولی با غلطت 20ppm استفاده شود تا تاثیر بیشتری در بدن داشته باشد. از نانوسیلور به عنوان دارو می توان در درمان بیماریهای پوستی، جوش و انواع جراحات و سوختگی ها، بیماریهای باکتریایی و قارچی، گوارشی و جنسی استفاده کرد.  تصاویرTEM از نانوسیلور (c) (a)          (b) (d)         پودرنانوسید p-105      (دانشگاه صنعتی شریف تست ( TEM  نقره ذرات نانو نقره برروی دی اکسید تیتانc ، d  و ذرات کامپوزیت دی اکسیدتیتان و نقره a,b

Nano Silver kills microbes - قابل توجه دوست عزیزم آقای مولویان

Nano Silver kills microbes - EPA up in Arms

 

More than a year ago, a little noticed article reported a study that found silver nano particles as found in silver colloids were able to kill HIV, in addition to a broad spectrum of viral bugs. Now, the US health authorities seem to have found a way to prevent this breakthrough from making it into broad public use. According to an article on NewsTarget.com, the Environmental Protection Agency is now selectively targeting nano silver - while practically ignoring pharmaceuticals and toxic chemical pesticides - as an environmental pollutant.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.com
The Journal of Nanotechnology has published a groundbreaking study that found silver nanoparticles kills HIV-1 and is likely to kill virtually any other virus. The study, which was conducted by the University of Texas and Mexico University, is the first medical study to ever explore the benefits of silver nanoparticles, according to Physorg.

During the study, researchers used three different methods of limiting the size of the silver nanoparticles by using capping agents. The capping agents were foamy carbon, poly (PVP), and bovine serum albumin (BSA). The particles ranged in size from 1 to 10 nanometers depending on the method of capping. After incubating the HIV-1 virus at 37 C, the silver particles killed 100% of the virus within 3 hours for all three methods. The scientists believe that the silver particles bonded through glycoprotein knobs on the virus with spacing of about 22 nanometers in length.

While further research is needed, researchers are optimistic that nanological silver may be the silver bullet to kill viruses. The researchers in the study said that they had already begin experiments using silver nanoparticles to kill what is known as the super bug (Methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus). Already used as a topical antibiotic in the medical industry, silver may now come under consideration as an alternative to drugs when it comes to fighting previously untreatable viruses such as the Tamiflu resistant avian flu.

According to NewsTarget, the EPA is using emerging regulations on the health effects of nano particles to selectively target colloidal silver products as "pesticides".

A friend who forwarded the article, commented that in the case of a bio weapons attack, silver would probably the most effective antidote. He says it is a real weapon of mass destruction, as far as pathogens are concerned, adding that at last count it will kill over 600 infectious agents on contact while being harmless to the human organism. The question he posits is: "Could this property of silver have something to do with the recent moves to keep this out of the hands of the public?

Here is the recent NewsTarget article:

- - -

EPA uses nanotech regulation ploy to target colloidal silver while ignoring all other nanotech particles

Nanomaterials -- products and materials changed or created at the atomic and molecular level -- are quickly gaining popularity for their multitude of uses, and while the Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to regulate popular nanosilver antibacterial products, ostensibly to protect consumers, critics say the move is a thinly veiled attempt to solely regulate nanosilver as a health supplement.
Nanosilver is used to kill harmful bacteria in food storage containers, shoe liners, washing machines and even bandages. Particles of nanosilver and other nanomaterials can be as small as one-millionth the size of a pinhead. However, the EPA, citing pressure from silver industry workers and environmental groups such as Natural Resources Defense Council, is investigating whether silver ions could pose an environmental threat by killing beneficial bacteria in the environment, or even harming humans. The agency also received a letter from Chuck Weir, chairman of a California wastewater treatment plant advisory group known as Tri-TAC, which claimed "silver is highly toxic to aquatic life at low concentrations and also bioaccumulates in some aquatic organisms, such as clams."

Silver was brought under close EPA scrutiny when washing machine manufacturers began making models that were lined with silver ions or sprayed them onto the clothes as an antibacterial agent. Last year, the EPA decided that the machines should not be regulated under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, since they were considered devices rather than pesticides. Recently, however, the agency re-examined its decision and reversed it.

"We took a second look at the release of silver ions, and it was very clear that this is a pesticide and not a device," Jim Jones, director of the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs, told the Washington Post. "Our original determination proved not to be a correct one."

Under the regulations, any silver product that claims it has antibacterial properties must prove the product is safe to be released into the environment. Mike Adams, a consumer health advocate and proponent of colloidal silver, suggested the regulations might work better were they aimed at antibiotics and pharmaceuticals.